>"So I think, speaking as the woman who played Nikki, I think that Nikki did have a crush on him, because he's a good guy. In the beginning, it's not Ian that she has been hooking up with. She talks about the difference between love and romance and how she doesn't wanna be stuck anymore."
https://thedirect.com/article/obsession-2026-inde-navarrette-nikki-crush-bear
I thought bear grabbed 3 or 4 wish sticks when he went back to get more? Did he only grab one extra and ian wasted it or when he walked out of the bathroom did it pan to one that demon nikki used?
During the first kiss Nikki freaks out and sees something, during the bar scene with friends she freaks out and sees something again, what is it?
Bear is the true horror of that movie. I have ZERO sympathy for the man. When Nikki spoke while the entity was asleep. He didnt think of helping her. He only asked why she couldnt love him.
He played off every time someone said something about how messed up the situation was. Even when it was so bad that he couldn't sleep. He still acted like everything was okay. He was the one with the real obsession. He hung onto hoping deep down she was in there and loved him. That this could somehow workout. He even played along with the cancer lie even though he knew it wasnt true.
When the thing controlling Nikki said it was his fault the other girl died. It 100% was.
10/10 movie
The film seems to reference and bring up cats a fair amount. Sandy’s death, the memorial, the lunch, the willow box.
We see how Sandy’s death foreshadows Bear’s death as they die in the same way and the same place but I feel like there’s more Curry wants to symbolise with cats?
What’s your take on the deeper meaning and symbolism of it all?
I know, yet another Obsession post, but I don't have many horror movie friends so this is a world I live in alone most of the time. I just wanted to share an emotional pull I had to it.
Obsession is, to me, a horror masterpiece. It's been a week since I saw it, and it has completely got under my skin and has refused to leave. I sat in the theater until the lights came on completely floored, and when I walked out I got a little choked up. I felt proud to be a fan of horror, and I think just completely overwhelmed to finally see a horror film that genuinely terrified me. I watched it for a second time at the weekend, and honestly, I got really emotional again a couple of times throughout. I mentioned this on another thread, but her monologue about darkness and nothing when he's not around - dang, it truly broke my heart. She was robbed of absolutely everything but her obsession for Bear. The idea of nothing - not even darkness - is truly terrifying.
Every time she 'glitched' and came back to her real self for a few seconds was so dark. She was terrified and she didn't want to be there, absolutely did not want any of that to be happening. Of course the screams through the phone, and her talking through the sleep, but the actual functioning moments kissing Bear and then again at the party, ooof. Even when she said she didn't like her dreams. Pure terror, beyond devastating. Inde absolutely nailed it. I can't really recall a character that has stayed with me for so long, and a week later, I still can't shake Nikki.
This is a perfect piece of art, and the hype is so real. It almost pisses me off when I read something negative about it lol.
I kinda don't want to see another horror movie for a while because this made me feel something I haven't felt in ages. I am really hoping Backrooms lives up to my expectations!
I didn’t understand why she defecated on herself multiple times. Is it because she was scared of what the “one wish willow” was doing to her??
Now this is assuming Nikki somehow knew about the one wish willow and she knew about everything that happened while she wasn't in control. This is a big assumption that I don't think is necessarily correct, but I thought it would be fun to assume for this hypothetical. So if she did know all of this and somehow gathered herself enough to escape before the cops arrive, couldn't she get a one wish willow and get someone to reverse everything that happened? Would reviving someone or reversing time somehow not work?
Is canon...
Because...
Thanks to a leak of the Digital Circus finale in brasil : Kinger reveals that Scratch had cancer and created memory backups for himself and his companions in order to continue existing in another form—meaning that all the players are copies of saved data from their true selves, who are outside living real lives. Jax becomes abstracted, but Pomni enters his memories and de-abstracts him. They revive Caine, and he allows them to create their own adventures... The End
Hi everyone,
So I really want to go watch the new obsession movie but I have really bad anxiety and I’m not sure what to expect. I know it’s more creepy and unsettling rather than jump scare horror (which I dislike and am scared of most) and I’ve seen two short clips online (car scene and the very creepy facial expression), but I’m still worried about watching it.
Last time I watched a horror movie was about 6 years ago, and I wasn’t able to sleep without the lamp on for about a month after that. I do like horror movies, I think they’re really cool, but I’m definitely not a horror lover.
Anyways, do you have any advice? What should I expect? Is it really that terrifying and is it worth the watch even if it might trigger my anxiety?
TLDR: want to watch obsession but have really bad anxiety and not sure what to expect. Last horror movie seen was 6 years ago and it was hard to sleep after.
This movie is generational. I've worked with a ton of horror directors and the genre is a breeding ground for indie talent because horror is cheap to produce yet requires true mastery of script, sound design, lighting and acting in order to elicit the deepest feelings of human terror. Curry barker will have a long career in Hollywood and deserves whatever budget he asks for in his next film. He will be a household name for a long time to come and I do not see another film surpassing this one in 2026.
***Spoiler Alert***
- The setups in this film are fantastic and there are no wasted scenes and no fat to trim in the whole movie. EVERY SINGLE SHOT AND SCENE IS NECESSARY and nothing is left to "convenient plot points." From the mirror shots, to the pills, to Sandy the cat, to the car shots, to the messy relationships that Bear has with Sarah and Ian and Nikki -- there are zero naked scenes that have no relevance to the plot and exist just for the sake of creating a single jumpscare or "spooky atmosphere."
- Typically in horror when the monster or ghost or demon is revealed there are reset moments that allow for the viewer to breathe. Often seeing the threat makes the danger known and less scary.
Yet what obsession does so well was that it kept the atmosphere terrifying equally when Nikki is on screen AND when she is off screen. I found myself in fear and looking at the corners of every frame every single second that Nikki was not there, afraid that she was going to show up. And whenever she did appear, scenes ran way longer than I expected and I found myself praying for the director to cut away before a third or fourth scare happened within the same scene.
- The film is not afraid to be brutally graphic when necessary. Especially in the car scene with sarah and close ups on Sarah's battered skull, or in Nikki excreting all over herself or her brutal self harm at Ian's party. I never had a single moment to relax because I was always afraid of what Nikki would do to herself or to others.
- Sound design was excellent. Everything from the score that felt like a dial that only turned greater intensity. To the dialogue from normal conversation to hysterical possession to delightfully passive versions of Nikki. Unlike other horror films that turn up suspenseful music when they want you to start feeling scared, every moment of silence in this film felt just as terrifying as the jumpscares themselves.
- The acting was phenomenal, up there with Toni collete in hereditary and Essie Davis in the babadook. Inde Navarrette needs to become a star after this role. Her voice control needs to be studied for decades.
- The lighting and camera work were pinpoint precise. You saw exactly how much you needed to see of the characters, Nikki's face, of the car windows, of the mirrors, of the bedroom, of each and every frame that you needed to see to advance the dialogue or the scene forward.
- Easter egg: I think the film borrows from Japanese horror (kairo) even in the choreography of Nikki's possession and how she moved around the room. I'm not sure if frames were cut to make her seemed like she glided through the floor but the rhythm in her movements definitely felt inhuman and deeply terrifying and supernatural. Especially in the scene when she was watching Bear sleep standing in the dark corner. I could be wrong, but it reminded me a lot of that and movements like in the Grudge.
I think this is genuinely an A or even an S tier horror film and I'm now going to watch every film Curry Barker puts out.
Please read what I have to say before you come at me.
I saw Obsession opening night last Thursday with a friend of mine. I remember turning to him like 45 min in and saying something like, “This is bad” to which he agreed. By the end of it we both had a bitter taste in our mouth.
Before I get into the more in depth thoughts I have I really just want to get the point across that I don’t like “magic” or that sort of thing without explanation. It definitely works, like Smile and Talk to Me are two of my fav horror movies of all time but they take the time to give at least a little context on the why. It seems like the movie takes place in a world where people can just go and buy these wishes. I feel like it would definitely be a bigger deal than it is made out to be. I barely saw any trailers for this movie btw, I am a horror fanatic so I just go to whatever horror movies are playing lol. I thought it was gonna be like some crazy girl he met on a dating app was stalking him and obsessing over him but no, no it wasn’t.
Okay time for in-depth shit. Spoilers ahead.
I didn’t hate the movie, I think all of the actors did incredible jobs especially the girl who played Nikki. I preface this because the more you hate a character the better the actor is. I absolutely hated Bear. He was so infuriating because of how selfish he is. The quickest way to define his character is the scene where he calls the number on the back and finds out that the “real” Nikki is in pain and he is given the option to cancel the wish (Later it’s revealed this was never an option but at this point Bear doesn’t know that) instead of saving his friend from suffering he tries to alter it rather than canceling it.
I relate to Bear a lot. I yearned over a girl for years without doing anything but I’d never want her to suffer because of me. That’s not real love.
The scene where Nikki’s body is asleep but the real her is awake and begging Bear to kill her is probably the best scene in the whole film. It again shows how selfish Bear is because the whole time she’s begging he’s trying to minimize and justify his actions. That’s psychotic and to top it off he then leaves her to go see Sarah (I think that’s what the other friends name is) and when she asks him if he knows what’s wrong or anything he continues the lie. He does this not to convince Sarah everything’s okay, but to convince himself that everything’s okay. This also then leads to Sarah being killed by Nikki.
There is never a lesson learned for Bear as he just kills himself (easy way out) like 20 min later. That’s why I don’t like the movie. It’s not necessarily a bad movie after watching it to its completion. It has a lot of great, emotional scenes. But in the end the curse is gone and Nikki has to live with the fact that she not only killed two people, her best friends, but also that she had no control over her own body and actions. There is no amount of therapy that could even make a dent on the trauma that this left in her. Also she probably will go to jail since how is she gonna explain any of it.
In conclusion the movie has some highs, but the lows are too much for me. My friend has been texting me reviews of the movie since we saw it because he doesn’t understand why everyone loves it so much, and either do I. People are allowed to have their own opinions which is why I want genuine answers here. I truly want to understand why people like it so much.
OK, so there is the regular Nikki before the One Wish Willow but is there a name for the evil or possessed spirit inside of her? Like an alter ego name? Or is she just regular Nikki and possessed Nikki?
NO ONE IS THE REAL VILLAIN.
Bear is just an anti social weirdo that doesn’t know how to properly socialize with the opposite gender. We’ve all seen these types. They are sad but also harmless.
He gets a wish toy not thinking much of it and didn’t do the wish out of malice. And he tries to find ways to break the curse without needing to either kill Nikki or himself many times.
People have an issue with bear saying “what’s so wrong with being with me?” He’s just venting his frustration. But he also doesn’t want to kill Nikki, he just wants her to be her regular self again.
HE EVEN WENT BACK TO THE STORE AND BOUGH MORE WISH BONES AND LITERALLY WISHED FOR NIKKI TO LOVE HIM AS A FRIEND AGAIN. LMAO
How anyone can pick a “villain” in this film is beyond me. This is a tragic love story bear was just as much a victim as Nikki, or Sarah, or Ian was.
edit: to the ones who say “he sexually assaulted her“ “he’s a rapist“ despite the fact that bear was in the mindset that Nikki took molly during the first incident. And after finding out that the wish bone is actually legit and none of the relationship is real. He starts to regret everything. but let’s just ignore that part for a minute
did y’all call out when Wonder Woman sexually assaulted a random man in the Wonder Woman 84’ film? Because in the film it is played and shot as if it’s romantic and cute. But she sexually assaulted that man. And no one makes an uproar for that one?
did yall call out the film “pretty things”? For essentially putting a new born childs brain into a fully grown women body and then proceed to have sexual relations with other grown men despite the fact the “woman” has a brain of a literal child inside her? Is that not weird?
I love when people pick and choose what to be outraged about.
Something struck me when I saw Obsession a few days ago for the first time. Yesterday, I rewatched it and that reinforced my thoughts on the subject of the cat. Which is that the repeated referencing to the "cat" has a deeper, double meaning. I tried to look at other threads and discussions before posting and don't really see much about my specific thoughts, so hopefully I am not being repetitive. Obviously, I could be way off and/or overthinking the film, but here it goes:
I think Curry Barker was using very effective subliminal messaging from the very beginning to articulate to the viewer that Nikki is no longer truly Nikki when her free will to be with Bear is taken by the wish. That the chosen phrasing used whenever the "cat" is referenced is designed as double entandre.
We know that Bear's cat, Sandy, dies after eating medication, but there are several scenes in the film where the cat gets extra emphasis throughout the plot. When Nikki makes the memorial, when Nikki brings the vase of flowers in the middle of the night after watching Bear sleep, and when Nikki feeds Bear pieces of Sandy in his sandwich. Bear cared for this pet, but I don't think it was meant to just be taken at face value that each moment is referencing the actual animal.
Immediately after Bear makes his wish and Nikki returns to his car, she is clearly different and infatuated with him and trying to have him spend time with her. He is obviously caught off guard with her sudden change of demeanor. Trying to convince him to stay, she says, "Do you want to come inside? I did just lose my cat, Bear." The viewer is also confused and taken off guard by her chosen phrasing. I don't think Curry Barker was just simply writing her words for the sake of making her seem off or weird. I think it was very good writing to illustrate her loss of control in this situation. (What she did just lose moments prior was her personal agency.) Bear is obviously confused because it isn't her animal, and this is where I believe "cat" first emerges as double entandre. We have the literal cat, Sandy, and the figurative cat: Nikki's personal agency.
The name on the back of the One Wish Willow box is called "Tabi Cat Curiosities" and it appears over the hotline that Bear calls later on. Again, I think Curry Barker is using the word "cat" as clever subtext to mean Nikki's presonal agency in this relationship. Another example of this is when they first get the relationship going and they are in bed and she tells Bear she's sorry he lost his cat and he replies, "I think you got me beat there." While on the surface, he was talking about her dad and cancer, I think that was another very subtle line where Curry Barker is telling the viewer that we know and that Bear knows he took her free will away with his wish.
The other main part where this idea struck me was the packed lunch scene where Bear sees the Polaroid of himself that Nikki packed, which says, "You" under Bear's image and the other photo with them together that shows "Not Me" under Nikki. There is a post-it note on his sandwich that says, "My little food critic." Moments later, Sarah reveals that another message is on the back of the post-it: "What's the verdict: Cat?" Taken literally without more thought, the question is obviously about the contents of the sandwich. But perhaps Bear is being asked a more veiled question: what is his verdict on his wish? Is he happy with his control of her? Be careful who you wish for. (At this point in the film it is more and more apparent that he is not happy with how things are going with his wish but he persists anyway with his codependency and desire to control.)
Thinking of it this way makes me think the earlier scene of the cat memorial may also be a symbolic mourning of Nikki's loss of free will and her body. The One Wish Willow box showing the viewer "Tabi Cat Curiosities" above the hotline number was no coincidence in my mind. Borrowing from the old saying "curiosity killed the cat", in Curry Barker's world, curiosity can kill the cat literally and figuratively.
Some of my analysis on the film, Obsession and important details I havent seen people talk about yet
I’ve seen many people also say no one’s a victim, everyone’s a victim, everyone’s the villain, etc.
Let's start off with the fact that Nikki was being mindlessly controlled while her subconscious was active and aware the entire time! Why would she be a villain when she had no power over her autonomy? And the number of times she tries to escape this spellbind? The number of times she snaps back confused, scared, traumatized. She literally begged Bear to kill her - not even a “help me, bear”, she would just rather die. Imagine going through months of watching yourself being possessed, moving “thoughtlessly” while simultaneously feeling your real thoughts.
Bear is 1000% the villain. Even before all the crazy stuff happened, I didn’t even consider Bear making that wish in an innocent, unknowing way. From a surface level, a boy wishes a girl would love him more than anyone else. On a deeper level, a boy wishes for a girl to be spellbound and forced to give up her freedom in order to live just for him (and that’s quite literally what she does: one example is when Bear is going to work and she says she’ll wait for him - she does indeed wait for him in that same standing position, peeing and pooping on herself for hours, fighting with herself for hours. Another scene where she pretends to read a book but the book was upside down the whole time. There’s nothing more important to her than “loving” Bear, so if she’s not doing that - then she does absolutely nothing while waiting for him). It’s also obvious he does not regret it. When he calls the one wish willow company, instead of asking to cancel the wish that would save real Nikki, he wants to “alter it.”, when he hears the real Nikki (her soul /subconscious) through the phone and her blood-curdling screaming, he just hangs up and goes about his night. Bringing up that same scene, when the real nikki asks him to kill her, Bear asks, “what’s so bad about being with me?” (the girl of his dreams is begging him to end her suffering and all he could do is focus on why she won't cater to him...). When he tries to kill himself, he regrets it at the last minute, proving that his character never changed. He was a greedy, egomaniacal coward from beginning to end. Additionally, his guilty consciousness shows up a few times. When the real nikki pops out the first time they kissed, Bear immediately screams, “you kissed me first!” and “you made me feel like i did something you didn’t like” as if nikki was blaming him for being some assaulter. When Nikki comes back to apologize, Bear gets nervous when Nikki reassures him that she doesn’t think he took advantage of her. Deep down, he knows what he's doing is wrong. The rape scene (which was 1000% a rape scene) was horrific to watch, as it felt like i was watching Bear fuck a dead body. Throughout the film, Bear watches Nikki go through emotional, psychotic and distressing spells. He KNOWS he’s the reason why she’s acting this way, but continues to follow his craving of being “loved” by nikki, neglecting the real nikki (who never loved him and who he never loved, leading to my next point).
I’ve seen people talk about what entity/ demonic spirit was controlling Nikki's body. That “entity” is simply Bear’s concept of the “love” he had for Nikki. The way Nikki was acting mirrors how Bear felt and perceived her. Bear never loved her; he was obsessed with her, and Nikki was projecting his obsessiveness the entire time. Bear doesn’t even know what love is. When Nikki is talking about her writing and about wanting a romance, not a love story, Bear goes, “What’s the difference?”. Nikki’s trance was Bear’s twisted love story.
Because Bear’s love for Nikki was actually an obsession, the wish is granted by showcasing Bear's “understanding” of love through Nikki. Nikki repeatedly talks about how much she loves Bear, but her actions never show it. That’s because Bear doesn’t know how to love her, so she doesn't know how to love him either, even though she’s restrained to. Bear was obsessed with a version of Nikki and forcefully projected that onto her.
Circling back to that scene of Nikki reassuring Bear that she wasn't taken advantage of, it was basically bear reassuring himself as Nikki's "thoughts" are a projection of Bears real thoughts. Bear knew what he did but was in denial.
After the trance, they seemed like a perfect couple. But the moment bear started getting tired of her, that's when things got chaotic. Again, because nikki is a manifestation of his desires, once she detects that he isn’t satisfied with her “love”, she gets more and more deranged to prove to him exactly what he wished for, and she of course will do whatever it takes to prove that she 'loves him more than anyone else in the entire world'. Because Bear's depiction of love is distorted, the ways Nikki tries to prove it to him are also very distorted.
Other scenes that emphasize that Nikki’s trance is actually Bear’s cognition.
As soon as the trance starts and she walks back to Bear’s car, Nikki talks about losing HER cat. Bear gets confused, Nikki realizes what she said and goes, “I mean, your cat”. I think that was the first hint that shows Nikki is casting what Bear thinks. She wasn’t confused, it was just the commencement of living in Bear's thoughts and living FOR Bear’s thoughts.
When Nikki packs him lunch along with those two Polaroids, one of the photos was of Bear with the caption “you” and the other of her and Bear with the caption “not me”. A direct way of Nikki telling Bear that she is mirroring him and it isn’t the real her.
Her passion for writing is reflected in her Hansel and Gretel story as well as her elucidative rant on how she would feel being all alone in bed when Bear suggested they take a break. Those two scenes were examples of other ways the real nikki pops out other than her waking up from the bound throughout the film. The Hansel and Gretel storyline was essentially the movie's overall story. The real Nikki is indirectly telling Bear that she sees him as a brother and he still forces himself upon her. She expresses her genuine emotions through peotry.
“Freaky Nikki” -
real Nikki hated that name but constantly calls herself that throughout her possession for Bears validation. Another thing is in the beginning, when Bear calls her that and Nikki says “you know I don’t like that name” and Bear admits that he did know that, but he still continued to call her it. It’s also a reflection of his inability to accept boundaries. He recognizes boundaries; again, he admits he knew Nikki hated that name and the trauma it caused, but said it anyway. This was the first subtle way in the film where Bear oversteps and violates, making both Bear and Nikki uncomfortable in that interaction. Bear making that one willow wish is an overall illustration of him overstepping and violating (controlling Nikki's autonomy), leading to both Bear and (real) Nikki being uncomfortable and hurting throughout the rest of the film.
A stone that signifies willpower. Nikki was essentially giving her willpower to Bear. Not that Bear didn’t already have it, but it felt like a cry from real Nikki, as she is unfortunately accepting the fact that she no longer has control over herself. Another example of ways the real Nikki expresses herself.
when Bear wakes up to find Nikki in the corner, Nikki tells him that she doesn’t like her dreams, hence why she wasn’t sleeping. I think the reason she doesn’t like her dreams is that she's battling with the real Nikki. When you sleep, your mind is still active. As mentioned before, Nikki's subconscious is active throughout her entire possession, so when “freaky” Nikki is dreaming, her dreams are of real Nikki and they're probably portraying the pain and suffering she's going through. Freaky Nikki doesn't have a mind of her own, she is a script of Bear’s wants. So when she sleeps, the real Nikki is the one in control as the subconscious mind is highly active in that state, which is also why she was able to speak to Bear even though her body was asleep.
Please feel free to express your thoughts or other things you’ve noticed, I want to hear different opinions!
What was all over the front door and why was it all over the front door? It looks like duct tape, but it doesn't look like duct tape. It seems like that was her way of keeping him trapped in the house.
I just recently saw the movie obsession. I thought it was good, but one thing that bugged me out in the movie and seemingly no one is talking about is that whole Nikki soliloquy she does about Hansel and greta. Like you know that whole scene at Ian's party? She stands up and says a whole bunch of weird shit, but she mentions something about a Willow. And that really struck me, could the entity that possessed her body be trying to say something? I dont remember the whole story but it was a bunch of weird shit and at the end she says something about a willow and a wish? Does anybody know what sort of symbolism or hidden meaning I'm missing?
1-How in the world did the cat manage to get into the medication bottle?
2-What happened when Bear took Nikki to the ER? It looked like he was arguing with a nurse and she just flew up her hands and walked back to the hospital.
3-There has been some discussion on who is going to get the money that Ian had wished for. But according to the "rules" the wish is canceled once the person who made it dies. So, would the money just disappear then?
No one’s gonna believe you killed your friend to free her from a demon possessing her.
Let’s pretend the only chance to do was when she pleaded for death. You’d have to stab her or shoot her in your bed.
Maybe going to jail is better than living with her lol