"I am Pádraic Súilleabháin. And I'm nice." Greetings and salutations, fuckers. My hyperfixation changes every two weeks, so don't expect a consistent theme in my posts. 🌲🍏⚪🌪🖤
Hot take is that I don’t like the “well maybe if Bear actually asked her out, Nikki would say yes” because I feel like we’re getting into a territory where Nikki is only “deserving” of sympathy because ah well she might’ve said yes anyways. Even if we ignore her saying she sees Bear as a brother, and we take it as when she said if she had a crush no one would know and she just passed it on to let Sarah be happy. Whether she would’ve said yes or no is ultimately irrelevant? Bear didn’t give her the option to say no. If she would’ve said yes, it still doesn’t matter, he revoked her right to say no
He also wants a passive job that he hasn't put any thought into. He seems to say it as almost a joke. Free food! Like he doesn't want to put any effort in to even feeding himself. (If he made his own lunch the sandwich scenario wouldn't have gone down.)
“which scene in Obsession gave you the chills? the backwards walking? the uncanny valley sleeptalking Nikki? Sarah getting murdered?"
actually it was the first time when Nikki became conscious after the wish. you know, when she was outside Bear's car, talking nonsense about the cat and she suddenly snaps into consciousness and goes "wait what the fuck?"
it wasn't enough to scare me but it was so fucking unnerving. especially if you know what's happening and what's coming, which i did.
like imagine you had a long night and you're going home to get some rest, and then suddenly your body starts moving of its own accord. and suddenly you're outside your coworker's car and you're talking nonsense, you're behaving very strangely, you're creeping him out and you don't know why.
did Nikki think she was going insane? did she think that she got drugged or that maybe something was wrong with her? how long did she wonder if she was just losing her mind, before realizing Bear had something to do with it?
even now, rewatching that scene makes me feel so uneasy. nothing extreme has happened yet but you can imagine the growing fear and confusion in Nikki as her body refuses to listen to her.
I think the thing that is the most disturbing to me about Obsession is just how quickly it becomes totally clear that Bear not only never loved Nikki, but that he never even liked her.
In the little time we spend with Nikki before she becomes possessed “freaky” Nikki, Obsession goes to great lengths to establish Nikki as a person.
In just the first 15 minutes of the film, we learn that Nikki loves writing, she’s laid back, and that she cares very deeply for others. We see that she’s funny, she likes to gently tease her friends and joke around. She has ambition and wants to pursue her writing seriously. She has her own goals and thoughts and opinions.
She’s also characterized very well by her wardrobe, how she talks, her body language and expressions (courtesy of Inde Navarrette’s absolutely STUNNING and brilliant performance).
In a VERY short amount of time, the audience is given a VERY clear picture of Nikki’s personality and usual behavior.
Which makes her “transition” into “Freaky” Nikki all the more horrific when Bear makes his wish.
Because even if we give Bear some grace, and acknowledge that he couldn’t have known that the One Wish Willow would do what it did, and even if we treat his kissing her on the first night she comes over as morally grey (although in my opinion he absolutely did take advantage of the fragile mental state he believed her to be in), there is no way to excuse Bear blatantly ignoring that Nikki changes so drastically from the person Bear claims to be in love with.
After the wish, Nikki starts speaking differently and using a higher pitched voice, she starts dressing completely differently and wearing more traditionally “feminine” clothing. She suddenly drops her plan to quit working at the music store and pursue writing, she stops showing any care towards her other friends and the people in her life. She defers to Bear in every situation, with the only exception being any time Bear shows any sign of moving away from her emotionally (or physically).
After the wish, Nikki becomes a completely different person.
And Bear does not care or show any concern regarding this at all.
Everything that makes Nikki who she is, everything that makes Nikki, Nikki, is just gone after Bear uses the One Wish Willow.
And Bear couldn’t be happier.
We get a whole montage of Bear and “Nikki” as a “happy couple” hanging out together and ignoring everyone around them.
It’s not until Bear starts seeing actual consequences to his wish, such as “Nikki” causing a scene on their date or feeding his dead cat to him, that he begins to worry about her behavior.
And even then—EVEN THEN!!!!—Bear STILL adamantly refuses to accept that Nikki is not behaving rationally or how she used to in any way. While he eventually acquiesces to canceling his wish, he first tries to just “alter” it to make it so Nikki still loves him, but is just less intense.
He would rather use “Nikki” to satisfy his own desires and ego.
If Bear loved Nikki, hell, if he even just LIKED her for who she is, he would be horrified by “freaky” Nikki. He would have recognized and acknowledge extremely early on in their relationship, that something was deeply wrong. He would know that the woman he was with was not Nikki.
But Bear would rather have a bootleg version of Nikki that he can feel validated by, than have an actual relationship of any kind with the real Nikki.
He does not love Nikki. He does not even like her.
He likes the idea of Nikki. He likes the image of Nikki that he’s constructed of her, the image of her that only exists in his head.
He likes the fantasy of what Nikki would provide to him emotionally and physically.
From the beginning of the film, Obsession shows us exactly who its villain is. Nothing that “Freaky” Nikki does horrifies me as much as Bear’s treatment of Nikki and his refusal to see her as an actual person with autonomy.
For me that’s the most disturbing element of Obsession. That the people you trust the most and care about may be so obsessed with the version of you they’ve created in their mind that they’ll actively ignore your personhood and autonomy.
God. Obsession is so fucking good. I love film. I love cinema. Thank you Inde Navarrette. Thank you Curry Barker. Film of the year, if god hates horror fans why do we keep winning.
I genuinely appreciate how obsession doesn't try to frame bear as morally grey but just fully leans into how deplorable he is. a lesser movie would have tried to give him redeeming moments along the way but no, at every single crossroads bear makes the wrong choice. when the customer service rep asks him if he wants to cancel his wish, he says no, and asks to alter it. when nikki, the real one, begs him to kill her, he asks her "if it would be so bad to love him", and right at the end, backs out of killing himself and tries to throw the pills up. he is the villain, not another victim, not a confused, cowardly boy, the villain.
i absolutely love how nikki is nearly always bathed in shadow (whether it’s fully in the dark or with a single light behind her with her as the faceless darkness). she’s quite literally become a shadow of her former self. no autonomy, no personal thoughts or emotions, just a carved image of what bear desired.
I need to see it again to pinpoint the details but I really like how the opening scene of obsession (2026) is Bear practicing his confession with a diner waitress... like already you have a woman (who is not Nikki) fulfilling the role for her, saying the response she thinks Bear would like to hear, but the moment this woman gives her own opinion, offering genuine advice to Bear (something along the lines of buying Nikki something she likes, like her favorite candy, flowers, etc)... Bear disregards it... but then ends up using Ian's recommendation from this same conversation (calling Nikki "Freaky Nikki")... like god its all already right there
it is terrifying that bear only sought to "alter" his wish rather than cancelling it but what is even more terrifying is that he wouldn't even have called the number had nikki not inconvenienced him. if she did not act in such extreme ways bear wouldn't even have a problem. which is sooooo sooooo terrifying because he was completely fine living and being "loved" by nikki who he knew wasn't the real her. he claimed to love her, but even when she started acting like a totally different person it was water off a duck's back for him. he DIDN'T CARE whether it was the real nikki or an entirely different person.
even when she begs him to kill her, he does not feel even a shred of pity for her; he only worries "is being with me that bad".
the only reason he tries to change anything is because her behavior started to scare him FREAK him out. had she acted in a meeker way, bear would've lived with her HIS WHOLE LIFE knowing she ISN'T the real nikki NOT GIVING A FUCK about what she would've wanted. PERIOD.
the more i sit with it the more i realise that the title of the movie did not refer to nikki's obsession with bear but rather his obsession with her. because i know fs that what he felt for her definitely wasn't love.
i feel like people are overlooking the moment at the beginning of obsession where nikki straight up asks "do you like me?" and once bear lies and says no she replies "ok, good." for starters, it was a chilling moment to me because this is such a classic experience of having a close guy friend, only to realize that he wants more from you. girls aren't dumb! nikki isn't dumb! of course she knows that bear is into her, she has eyes! she can see his stuttering and sheepishness and she's just dreading the moment she has to turn him down, to tell him that he's like a brother to her. just before she had told him that she doesn't feel real love in her life, and i don't think it would be a leap to attribute a small part of that feeling to her fear that her friendship with bear isn't as simple as she wants it to be.
it's also a chilling question from nikki because once she walks away bear knows that she doesn't feel the same way about him, and he makes the wish anyway. he is incapable or unwilling to take a hint and see that she doesn't feel the same way. and that question is the last thing she says to him before he ruins her life forever. it's unfair.
there’s something so gutwrenching about the fact that the female characters in obsession have real dreams and wishes but never get the chance to see them realized, while both male characters waste their wishes on short-term selfish satisfaction. they were complex, free-spirited young women who just wanted to create art, and they were destroyed by a man determined to confine them to his superficial perception of them. nikki wanted to be a writer, sarah wanted to be an tattoo artist and now neither of them will get to be anything at all
oh and another thing that devastates me about Obsession is how much nikki is judged and blamed by those around her. sarah and ian repeatedly telling bear that he shouldn’t have to deal with her, that she’s not his responsibility, that they’re worried she’s taking advantage of him. as if they aren’t also her friends, as if they shouldn’t know her well enough to notice something is off. there’s no concern for why nikki is behaving the way she is, there’s just distain towards it. she starts acting out of character and so it must all be intentional. but bear doesn’t get questioned. bear isn’t gossiped about. nikki loses all her agency and autonomy, and all she gets for it is judgment
on my second viewing of obsession, i had the realization that nikki’s story at the party wasn’t the movie using incest as an easy shorthand for making the audience uncomfortable or creating a general “things are off” vibe but was another way the real nikki was crying out—a metaphor for the fact that nikki, like gretel, is being made to fuck her “little brother” (bear) under duress, at the behest of an external magic (the witch’s spell in her story; obviously, bear’s wish)
Just saw the interview where Curry Barker explained that it's totally possible to get a normal wish from the One Wish Willow, and I love the way they did that so much. The reason Obsession happened isn't because it's trying to twist Bear's desires into something evil. It's not even because he phrased his want wrong. Obsession happened because Bear got his hands on a magic item that could do anything in existence, and chose to force someone to fall in love with him, which is an inherently evil thing to do.
got my girlfriend into chuck tingle’s horror and we both bought a different book of his to the pool which summoned a bear who came over and was like MY MAN CHUCK TINGLE before diving into the pool
