“What’s so bad about being with me?” You raped her. You changed her so fundamentally she is literally not the same person anymore. You took her body and her mind with no consideration for her own feelings about you. You dominate her life in a way she no longer has a life. You took everything from her but her life. She begged you to kill her but in your mind her not loving you was a fate worse than her death. It was never about you but you made it so anyway. She literally doesn’t exist without you. That is what your obsession did 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.
the longer I sit with obsession the more empathy I start to feel for entity!nikki. this creature that was created solely to love one person with this all-encompassing intensity that needed to be stronger than anything anyone felt in the entire world. entity!nikki whose entire world was just one single focal point; she'd do anything for bear to love her. she didn't know anything when she came into existence, but she was willing to do anything to get this man to fall for her.
it must have been equally terrifying for her as it was for the real nikki to have someone else fight for control over what she perceived as her body. the scene where she's sobbing in the corner, terrified of her dreams is now more sad than terrifying to me. real nikki, who has just been raped by her once best friend hurting so badly that it seeps into entity!nikki's nightmares. entity!nikki who doesn't understand why the thing she wanted so badly is causing her so much pain. why she can't bring herself to lie in bed next to the man who is the center of her world.
and the worst part is bear doesn't even seem to like her. she's trying so so hard; she made a lovely memorial for his dead cat, she waited for him to come home all day without moving an inch, she made sure to be the most doting girlfriend at the party, and he's not pleased by any of it. he seems disturbed and angry and scared and she has no idea what to do to make it better. to make it worse, he keeps asking her to behave like the original nikki but he was the one who wished for her!! she can't be like nikki because nikki was simply not capable of loving bear even a fraction of how much she does!
she can't seem to reconcile it; he wanted her so badly he conjured her into reality and now he doesn't want her anymore. she doesn't know what to do. she tries everything. she obsesses over him, she threatens to hurt herself, she gets rid of that bitch sarah who keeps distracting him and trying to steal him away, and then dresses in her clothes for good measure and he still doesn't want her.
and then finally in a fit of desperation, she makes the wish and for one beautiful moment its all perfect. he's finally looking at her the way she looks at him. and then he's dead and she's lost everything.
her entire existence, from the moment of her conception to her death was painful, and confusing, and so very sad.
His name being Bear. Her seeing him as a brother, and then the Hansel and Gretel story. Him not wanting to cancel the wish when he thought he could, just alter it. The soundtrack. The sunshine necklace and "Nikki would hate that" and then she stops leaving his house during the day. Everytime she freaks out after coming back into her own body. Him not caring. Fake Nikki making things up. "Is being with me so bad?" I love this movie so much Curry Barker you are a genius.
the thing about obsession is that I already knew men were capable of great violence, even the ones that you think you can trust, the ones you feel closest to, the ones you think are good people. at the end of the day, oftentimes, their desire to possess you overrides everything else. to me, the saddest takeaway of the movie is that nikki truly had nobody. all her friends saw her acting oddly, they all saw her break down at the party and try to smash her head in with a bottle. they all saw bear taking advantage of her mental state. and still nobody else stepped in. maybe they didn't think anything was wrong, I don't know, but more likely, it was just easier for them to look the other way and lie to themselves that everything would be okay. maybe tell themselves that she'd turn them away if they did try to help. because to try to help would be to experience discomfort and nobody ever wants to put themselves through that. it made me think of real life and how women in abusive relationships become so isolated - partially due to fault of their abuser, of course, but also because most people have the mindset of "not my business" and "too much trouble". which sure, applies sometimes, but when its your closest friend it IS your business. they could see she was going through something, but its always easier to talk about them behind their back and pretend you've shown concern, that you're a good person for "caring", rather than actually make an effort to help - which most times is ugly and difficult but is the right thing to do.
sadly, sarah and ian's actions rang very true to real life. ian said a few perfunctory words to bear about 'how its wrong' which made no difference at all, but he could pat himself on the back and sleep easy at night after doing so. sarah ended up making it about herself, telling bear "that he didn't deserve nikki putting her troubles on him" (paraphrasing) and suggested that he'd be better off with her, although she knew that nikki didn't have feelings for bear and a blind person could see that something fishy was going on. yet she took the easy way out and pretended she was caring about bear while being unbearably selfish.
maybe they could have helped her - maybe she would have snapped out for a moment and they would have realized what was wrong, maybe they could have forced bear to tell them, maybe they wouldn't have been able to change anything. but it is so sad that they didn't even try.
worse, we know nikki is someone who's there for other people, as evidenced by the dialogue early-on where bear tells Ian she was the one who showed up and took care of him when his grandmother died. yet, when it came down to it, nobody showed up for her. she was failed in every way and this frightens me, because I wonder how many of my friends will look past their own discomfort to come help me if I was ever in a similar situation.
My toxic trait as a horror fan is that I will never ever ever ever ever tire of grief horror. The idea of grief driving people to do dark and unimaginable and truly horrific things is just so fucking raw and so fucking real to me and it fucks me up every single time. I don‘t care how many times I see it done in different ways or in the exact same way, it always hits for me. I am an absolute simp for any and all grief-based horror concepts and I forever will be.
One thing about Obsession (2026) that I enjoyed was that it almost asks you to feel empathy for the entity possessing Nikki as well as the real one. Like, obviously the things she's doing are horrific and fucked up, but I think the scene where Bear is asking her to "just be Nikki!" and she eventually just desperatly screams "I can't be Nikki!" does a really good job of showcasing the entity's inner feelings. She's been created with the sole purpose of loving this guy more than anyone else but no matter how perfect it is or how much he claims to love her, its not her that he loves, its Nikki. And any time she stops pretending to be Nikki, he reacts (albeit rightfully) with disgust and horror. She can't be Nikki because Nikki would never love Bear, and so Bear will never love her.
I can't get over how the brilliance of the "Rocky Road to Dublin" scene in Sinners is woven into every single thread comprising it.
We already know that "I Lied to You" and "Rocky Road to Dublin" are foils of each other in that "I Lied to You" welcomes, acknowledges, and celebrates the inclusion of multiple cultures and cultural influences into its composition both visually and sonically, whilst "Rocky Road to Dublin" is Remmick stripping his thralls of their identity (personal, racial, cultural) to celebrate himself and the culture and people he lost.
However, this isn't entirely true. Not in any way that exonerated Remmick or makes him any more "inclusive," but in a way that even better highlights his status as an emblem of cultural vampirism.
The vampires around him don't just gather to watch and dance along in a neat circle or in any traditionally Irish formation, they form concentric circles in what I believe to be a take on the ring shout :
In the last ten seconds or so of the song, as well, you can hear a woman vocalising in a way that seems very much to be inspired by Gospel music. This, too, is intentional even in the casting of the choir used to sing the backing vocals for "Rocky Road to Dublin," a Los Angeles-based group called the DC6 Singers Collective, who describe themselves as having "roots in A Capella, Gospel, Doo Wop, and R&B" and whose members are primarily Black (x).
Now, Irish music may be many things, but a tendency to be performed as an homage to the ring shout with Gospel influences to its vocal stylings is not among them.
Remmick didn't simply coerce his thralls to perform a song written by his people as it would have traditionally been performed, he pulled and co-opted elements of their culture he found striking from their minds to celebrate and revere his own without any regard to how they may or may not appreciate those inspirations and contributions being pulled from them without their consent.
The song is still a foil for "I Lied to You," but not in the sense that "I Lied to You" is about a celebration of culture and its progression as it influences and is influenced whilst "Rocky Road to Dublin" is a celebration of Remmick and the unitary culture he longs to revive, but in the sense that "I Lied to You" celebrates shared culture as it is formed organically over time and values the influences of each contributor (who, importantly, are consenting to run their own brush across the canvas) whilst "Rocky Road to Dublin" represents predatory, self-serving culture vultureship, in which elements from other cultures are represented not as an equal contributor to the end product, but are rather simply used to further establish the dominant culture's dominion over all others.
you may have noticed that my blog is disorganized and thematically incoherent and my tag game is weaker by the day. this is commentary on the chaos of modern existence
daniel molloy character of all time once again: like imagine you’re a 20-something drug addict and a terrible journalist on account of being 20-something and a drug addict and you randomly meet a vampire at a gay bar and you think wow I might get drugs, gay sex and a story out of this and instead what you get is psychologically and physically tortured by his husband and your memories of it all erased and then 50 years later you’re DYING and those vampires show up in your life again to ask you to write the story of their happy marriage and your memory might be fucked but ON GOD you WILL ruin that marriage if it’s the last thing you do. and then not only do you succeed and walk out of it alive, but also with a bestseller, millions in your bank account AND immortality AND the knowledge that your annoying human ass was somehow the one thing that made that 500+ year old predator so mad that he broke his lifetime vow to never turn anyone. AND, on top of that, you’re out of the CLOSET.
You know what else is neat? The portayal of Sammie's PTSD and triggers in the movie.
It's hard to make an audience understand trauma. Even more so when it's the 'small' parts of trauma, the paranoia, the flashes of anxiety, a feeling of physical illness, all these everyday instances of being brought back to a moment. Experiences that don't always make sense from the outside.
Usually a movie or film will go to explaining things, remind the audience of the trigger, so they can logically understand things. And that works, empathy built with reminders and, but Ryan Coogler does something so special in Sinners in the way he actually makes the audience experience what it is to be triggered, for just an instant and a scene.
It's when Sammie is drinking at the bar in his venue, tells the bouncer he can let the patrons in after hours. The bouncer tells them they can come on in, and there's this pause. Sammie looks up, this uncertainty on his face; the music changes, there's a tension in the air, and you're a liar if you say you didn't feel at least a little bit of fear. Stiffen in your seat. There is a palpable undercurrent of terror in that moment.
This works so well because we've been prepped by the movie, to understand the legitimate danger those words carry, the kind of monster they can let inside. This is all before Stack and Mary enter the location, mind you, we don't know for certain what's behind the door. The tension could be entirely unnecessary. But we have been instilled with a shadow of Sammie's trauma. We have a little bit of that fear he's been carrying with him, and in this moment of not-knowing, we experience in the slightest way, the effects of a trigger. We have felt a little bit of that lack of safety and discomfort that is brought on.
It is a madly impressive thing to do. Not just to make your audience understand, but experience what the character does.
turnnoffyourmind
origamiaround
jbbartram-illu
stormborns
kianamaiart
