Obsession

Who is Nikki Freeman? It’s a question that bears asking, if only because her screentime in Obsession – the hyped feature debut of YouTube horror favourite Curry Barker – is ultimately so brief. Nikki (Inde Navarette) works in a music store with three close-knit co-workers, all bonded by mid-20s burnout ennui, going nowhere fast (save for the local bar for weekly trivia night, the shining oasis in all the drudgery). There’s dejected college aspirant Sarah (Megan Lawless), snarky Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) and wet-eyed puppy-dog Bear (Michael Johnston), a guy who carries himself as if he cried himself to sleep the night before and cried himself back into waking life in the morning, likely because he did. Of the group, Nikki is the clear extrovert, livelier and, seemingly, happier than her compatriots, or at least better at pretending.

It’s easy to see why people gravitate to Nikki, who’s quick to laugh, harbours sincere writing ambitions, and has been happy to lend Bear a supportive ear and shoulder to cry on in the wake of his beloved Gran’s passing. Additionally, it’s clear that, whether it’s wanted or not, a reputation has attached itself to Nikki in the form of a nickname with the power to visibly wound her. When an assumed friend directs it her way, half-teasingly, a whole history of hurt is written on Navarette’s face. We sense that she has learned the hard way that certain people – guys like Bear, perhaps – will freely project their hopes onto her; the hope that, were she to love them, maybe they could love themselves too. And we feel, keenly, the lonely toll this has taken on her over time.

Once all this is established, Nikki’s time is already all but done, though she doesn’t die, really. There’s no Ghostface call waiting for her after Bear drops her off at her place (though their journey there has been plenty squirm-inducing in itself, as Bear steadfastly refuses to behave normally around his crush at every turn). Her severed head will not be appearing on her friends’ doorsteps with a note in menacingly ornate writing attached. Still, she’s going away, and in a brief time, Navarette and Barker create a complete enough picture of her to ensure the loss is felt.

Obsession operates from a conventional Be Careful What You Wish For horror set-up, with the miserable Bear impulsively wishing on a cheap-looking, store-bought totem that the girl he’s long carried a torch for will love him back, and more than anyone else in the world, at that. Nikki runs right back to his car, now chock full of stories about a father dying of cancer, a desperate inability to be alone, and above all, a need to be around Bear, whom, as she repeatedly insists, she loves so much. So so much. Bear is befuddled, but willing to go with it, up to a point. After all, the night has suddenly taken a turn from a mini nightmare into the fulfilment of his dream. Things will turn extremely sour in due course, and it’s a testament to Barker’s skill – and that of his terrific leads – that his movie instils such queasy, wincing discomfort well before that point.

Navarette’s performance as this transformed not-Nikki is a kind of body horror of temperament. Her smiles stretch her face into a painful, frozen rictus; when Bear’s anger flares, she turns sullenly, pleadingly childlike, and her own tempers are volcanic. Every movement made and word spoken is uncanny to an upsetting degree, and it only worsens in company with others (there is a party scene rivalling anything in The Drama for sheer cringe factor). Barker may be in firm command of pleasingly old-fashioned scare tactics (the lighting creates the kind of deep shadows that seem bottomless), but what makes Obsession harrowingly effective is its proximity to something unmistakably real. Autonomy, consent, co-dependency and control are all on its mind, to the point that when the expected explosions of gore arrive, they feel almost like a soft diversion from the thick tension, instead of the cathartic payoff. Even when the chaos mounts and we head to a predictably bloody finish, there is a suffocating layer of despair hanging over Obsession that is hard to shake.

Ultimately, Obsession marks a highly impressive, queasily gripping horror debut for Curry Barker, as well as a startling showcase for Inde Navarette, who makes hauntingly vivid the spectacle of a soul being smothered to death.