r/spoilers

Hear me out this makes a lot of sense. Curry Barker made a movie masked as a monkey paw horror film that shows the horror of modern dating for nice guys.

- Bear is the nice guy and is respectful to Nikki but gets called pathetic.
- kills himself to save Nikki but is panned for not being brave enough, for being afraid of death(normal)
- He sleeps with her for her own good (she was hurting herself when rejected) but gets called a rapist.

Meanwhile the so called hot girl overlooks the good guy who was there for her the whole time and is nailing the asshole (Ian) who rather wants a billion dollars instead of helping her

Now that the movie is available to stream I feel like people can figure it out a little better. I saw that the subtitles just say “indistinct, distorted speech”. I’ve heard people say multiple things… but I can’t really tell. Just curious.

I have to say I hated this movie. It reads like a white mans understanding of 'love'

Bears initial wish that nikki 'loves him more than anyone in the world' doesnt warrent any of her behavior at all. Some may say "well you cant wish someone to love you so it gets wierd" which to me is a cop out. The opposite of love ISNT hate, its not danger, why would the over saturation of love become obsession?

The opposite of love isnt hate, its apathy. In my opinion, Nikki should have been apathetic to anyone other than bear, killing them makes absolutely 0 sense. The lens 'love' is looked at in this movie imo is narcissistic at best.

If a wish for love makes the love too great, why would they not illustrate that by her asking bear about himself, making him talk endlessly, learning every detail, stealing his clothes, singing songs from his childhood, the way they illustrated her obsession was so lazy and impersonal.

the cat sandwich was a very stupid gag designed to make the viewer uncomfortable, similar to why they open the movie with a dead cat. Its a desperate shock. The cat sandwich did not fit the storyline at all. Why would nikki feed him his cat....? how does that correlate to her being manipulated by a spell to be in 'love' (Some people may say that its because the spell is backfiring but again, that doesnt make sense. backfired love does not become a hateful action, it would become apathy) Why would she intentionally dig up his cat and cook it, to feed it to him? additionally the meat was fucking grey, he didnt smell the sandwich was not normal food? The cat was dead for like 2 weeks it would have been hard as a rock. idk the cat gag was just so desperate and as an animal lover it was incredibly hard to watch. It wasnt hard to watch because of the cruelty, it was because it was desperate and again, the creators of this movie have very little understanding or regard for inventive plot.

Additionally, Nikki doesnt even 'love' bear. If he said he wished nikki was obsessed with him id have little to critique as far as in-world dynamics are concerned. She doesnt even feign interest in anything he actually likes. what are bears hobbies? what are the things he cares about? Do we ever learn anything about who bear is or WHAT nikki "loves" about him? Havent they been friends for years? wouldnt she have knowledge about..... anything he likes at all?

If we allow the narrative that love tainted becomes obsession as the writers would have us believe, wouldnt nikki do more insideous things? not just obvious like duct taping the door, wouldnt she know things about him? Use that as leverage? Instead they just make her a desperate liar.

As far as the writing over all, it was really lazy. as a hair and makeup artist in union 798 and mostly working as dept head on features I also HATED the hair and makeup. it was very distracting and not polished at all, and the tiktok trend makeup was lazy and not even readable.

Specifics about this movie I would have changed:

The cat - Irrelivant to the movie, was placed for shock purely and genuinely pissed me off. Dont use a dead animal if the prop looks like shit, and using a dead animal for shock is a really pathetic start to a movie if its not specifically about how that death impacts the character. Remove the cat completely, or use the cat to continue a thruline of story.

Killing off friends - She should have killed bear instead. if shes that obsessed with him after she saw he was "unfaithful" triggering a "if you wont stay with only me we will be together in death" response makes more sense for an obsession than killing people she doesnt care about; if she loves bear more than anyone, she doesnt care about anyone else AT ALL.

the lying - It doesnt make any sense to me that loving bear makes her also desperate. as someone whos been infatuated with others, and had intense crushes id definitely make myself seem more aligned with what they liked, not just random lies to garner sympathy. if they would have used the lies to make her seem more similar to bear it would have made more sense.

No character building for nikki at all - We barely get any of nikkis personality. just that she gave a homeless guy someone elses money and maybe a 5 monute dialouge in the start of the movie. They spent an hour of her just being omonous and strange when they could have given us 15-20 minutes more of her background with bear.

The makeup - If they wanted her to feel "possessed" on a tight budget the tiktok 'uncanny valley' makeup was wholey a lazy decision. Ive been underpaid for features, you should still do GOOD work (the amount of fly aways, greasy skin, and the curls on the girl whos dad owns the video store were so fucking poorly done) Why wouldnt they just use reflective shadow on her eyes and keep her eyes lightly closed? theyd look like they were glowing. Or even glow in the dark powder thats skin safe!! Charge it and shoot low light (the entire film was basically a black screen for 35% of the film anyway)

Her style changing - this was such a barely there mechanic they claim they instituted, I hardly noticed it. For how aggressive everything else was in the film this was not the place to go quietly. Had they used the slow burn mechanic for everything this would have worked, but because of the decision to make the wish 'instant' this should have also been a jarring change, but again this film was mediocre so... of course.

TLDR: this movie is so overhyped and its just a masterbatory snuff film trying to appear 'woke' when it really just feels like an excuse for the director and producer to manipulate a young actress into working across a sub-par male actor. The creators dont seem to understand how to create a continuous storyline and instead rely on quippy gags and clickbait scenes that feel intentionally created to farm views and go "viral" (tiktok makeup, a few second snapshots that allude the movie is visually designed and interesting when in reality most of the movie is underlit and poorly designed.)

I realize I have a lot of opinions about this movie, but thats because mediocre dribble some white guy had his mommy and daddy underpay his friends for always gets to theater when good, honest artistic movies get left in the dust. While Im glad independant film is getting attention, we dont need more movies about how bad men are. We know, they make movies like this.

My theory is Nikki was obsessed with Bear to begin with. When the cat died Bear was confused how the cat got into the pills in the first place. And the fact that Nikki knew about the cat when it never shows him telling her. I don’t love the jump that well he must have told her. I think Nikki killed the cat and that’s why she knew. Maybe she was obsessed before and when he wished for her to love him if she was already weirdly obsessed with him and it could have blended to create the obsessed monster love version of her. Thoughts?

Sorry if this has been mentioned already. But Baron's name is probably linked to The Voodoo god Baron Samedi. The god of the undead.

I hardly doubt the wish enhanced her in anyway and she could just tear through the guards and escape prison to get to bear again(but her aim with gun while killing Ian is questionable) would bear finally be free without having to kill himself?

We got to know that when Nikki and Sarah were talking about Bear, Nikki told her that he was like her brother..

But in first scene, she directly asks " Do u like me?? " to him and she seems kinda upset that he said he likes her as friend!!!

I have this theory when Nikki was doing all the weird things like feeding him his cat that’s the only thing I can remember at the moment but I feel like when she did things like that ,I noticed she would say “I dunno why I do I’m just nervous “ I feel like it was the real Nikki trying to get bear away from her! The more I read on Reddit I feel like my theory is wrong but what you think ?

How differently do you think the story would play out?

Would Ash manage to solve his girlfriend problems or would his reckless attitude make things even worse?

While 'the willow' slept, Baron could have got the real Nikki to use her wish to undo the first. I feel like that would have been a tense moment when he inevitably messes it up, and then just like the actual movie the willow gets to make her wish a reality.

ALSO stop calling him bear, what are you people his girlfriend? that was his "cute" nickname by the willow. stop it, dumb as hell.

(I knew nothing about the film. Only that it was a big hit last year. I've seen no reviews yet so I have no idea if my opinions/observations are popular or unpopular)

It is essentially the FLY but much worse without any class and with lame ending.

-It is too long. We know what will happen from first frames of the movie. Title substance, we focus on the egg separating and we see an older actress. We know what the movie will be about. She will clone or something and they will fight and mutate. I knew that in first 5 minutes.. then you wait over 2 hours....

-How the hell does she builds A NEW ROOM in an apartment?! where is the room coming from?! How does she know how to do that and have tools !!!!

-The dude heard a weird noises coming from the bathroom and just booked it out of there?! like WHAT. You are sleeping with famous person. Call the police!

The ending is terrible for few reasons....

-A NUDE NEW YEARS PARTY ON A TV?! WITH KIDS !!!

-Possibly it was all in her head as she didn't make it to the show at all... but why make it ambiguous? It serves no purpose to make us think he whole eve show was fake.

-if she made it to the show for real... how the hell would they let her in and the rest is just so bad.

I would be totally all in with the direction the movie went to but it is not a direction for this movie.

Granted, I just seen obsession few days ago so maybe I was expecting something much more subtle and clever (loved obsession) but substance was such a bad movie.

1. Bear isn’t a bad guy or anything like that. He is morally gray and you see him struggling with his own emotion.
2. it’s much more that Ian is the bad guy because he was turning on Bear being the worst best friend and on Nikki.
   Other women absolutely didn’t deserve that hell of death.
3. Nikki is equally wrong. If I Woman puts a men into the purgatory between friendzone and romance she just deserves that bad things happen to her. She asked for it.

I know theres lots of post with the same question but the ones I were finding were days to only months after the movies release, so figure it wouldn't hurt to ask.

>!I know I'm late on this Obsession train (he, see what I did there?). But when Bearon called the customer service number and the guy was like do you want to talk to her, and it was Nikki screaming as if she was in excruciating, what was that?!<

>!My first thought was it was her self control (the real her, her soul or conscious) being torutred by trauma and or pain. I don't know how accurate this is but according to what I read the writer of the film said this is not a possession film. If its not then.. how does any of it make sense? !<

>!I know theres lots of post with the same question but the ones I were finding were days to only months after the movies release, so figure it wouldn't hurt to ask.!<

It's very commonly understood by many that Bear should have been honest about his feelings to Nikki, but do you think the way he originally intended was the way to go? I ask because an emerging reading on the film is that while Bear was clearly the villain, the whole group failed Nikki in some other way too. I wonder if Ian telling him not to confess in that way was an intentional way of sabotaging Bear's chances with Nikki given their history, or if it was simply him genuinely giving advice, albeit a terrible one. Or perhaps was he indeed overboard?

The current reading I have on it was that Ian did fail both Bear and Nikki in that moment, even if unintentionally. By discouraging Bear from sharing his genuine feelings and dancing around it, it led to that really awkward talk between them in the car. Of course, we know that there's more to Bear's shittiness that stems from a more deeply rooted insecurity, which goes beyond just that bad interaction. But I'm trying to build on the case that Nikki was in fact failed by everyone in that group in some way shape or form, which also makes for why she didn't want to be there anymore even before the events of the film. Do share your thoughts.

After Sarah is killed and they "clean" up the body, bear goes to ian's and Ian tells bear he had been recieving texts from now dead Sarah (nikki) telling him to come over. The only thing I dont understand is why nikki would be interested in doing anything to Ian. She killed Sarah as she was in the way of her and bear and their 'love' but Ian was never a love interest (as far as we are told). Is there another reason to kill him because she just wants bear to herself?

Okay, so everyone online is talking about Bear, Nikki, and that walk, but I haven't seen many people discussing these questions from Obsession, and they're driving me crazy.

1. When Bear comes home from work, Nikki is just standing there covered in what I'm assuming is vomit. I saw someone suggest that she'd simply been standing there waiting for him and that her body was just expelling fluid. But... why? Baker has already confirmed this isn't a demonic possession, so it's not like some evil force is leaving her body. I understand she's consumed by obsession, but are we supposed to believe that every time Bear leaves, she just stands there until she vomits? That doesn't really make sense to me. I've also heard the theory that she ate the cat, which would at least explain the vomit, but is there anything in the film that actually supports that? I just need some closure on what this scene was trying to convey.

2. Near the end, after she offs Ian and before she breaks the One-Wish Willow, she gets right in Bear's face and screams: "I'll rip my f****** eyes out of my skull..." (you can browse how she finishes that sentence on Script Slug)

What was going on here? I get that she did wild things throughout the movie, but this was different. At first, I thought it was the "real" Nikki breaking through, but whenever real-Nikki seemed to surface, it happened suddenly and looked more like moments of shock or confusion. This felt completely deliberate, so it seems like it was still wish-Nikki. Was this meant to be manipulation? Like, "Love me, or I'll hurt myself"? Or was there another meaning behind it?

thanksss

Bear asking for help and the dude on the other line straight up telling him only way out is to off himself, when he could’ve told him about having someone else cancel his wish with another wish. Also who was that dude supposed to be?