REVIEWED: Obsession (2026)

“It’s terribly simple. The bad guys are easily distinguished by their pointy horns or black hats,” observed famously dry-witted school librarian and vampire slayer guardian Rupert Giles in one particularly poignant episode of iconic ‘90s supernatural horror series Buffy. With this bitterly ironic insight highlighting the often infinitely more covert and insidious nature of human villainy, the most skilful storytellers among us are quick to note that true horror seldom reveals itself quite so readily. And while the genre’s classic catalogue of knife-wielding psychopaths, haunted dolls and special effects-laden exorcisms may have furnished us with no small amount of ghoulishly gratuitous viewing pleasure, sometimes the most disquieting kind of horror is situated within altogether less fantastical territories.

Take, for example, the painfully awkward and unassuming protagonist of Obsession – a twenty-something young man rather ironically named Bear (Michael Johnston) harbouring a debilitating crush on his ‘cool girl’ friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette). With the accidental death of his pet cat foreshadowing a whole boatload of further misfortune, Johnston does an impressive job of painting our ill-fated protagonist as a pitiable soul categorically doomed to romantic failure. That is, until a curious purchase from a local occult emporium results in the formerly aloof and indifferent girl of his dreams inexplicably attaching herself to him like a co-dependent limpet.

Transforming beyond all recognition into a weeping, infantile wreck with all the emotional regulation of an England football fan, co-star Inde Navarrette portrays this once-carefree young woman’s violent psychological decline with morbidly compelling theatrical prowess. And while the more brutal, viscera-stricken highlights of Obsession make for undeniably compelling viewing, it’s arguably Nikki’s whiplash-inducing shifts in mood, vocal delivery and motion that make this one of the most petrifying incarnations of the possession subgenre ever created. Indeed, from a smile whose wide and unwavering rictus lingers entirely too long for comfort through to one particularly choice, reverential nod to The Exorcist, every single mannerism and micro-gesture points to something utterly alien and insidious taking hold in her.

Indeed, beyond director Curry Barker’s impressive knack for orchestrating intensely claustrophobic atmosphere and suspense, the true horror of Obsession resides in one deceptively simple yet utterly terrifying premise: that of a woman being systematically robbed of her bodily autonomy and reduced to the status of an object to be possessed, both literally and metaphorically. Together with his portrayal of a socially insular young man whose reckless pursuit of his own self-serving desires leaves a trail of irreversible devastation in its wake, this is a bloody, psychologically disquieting triumph of a directorial debut.

9/10