She stabbed herself in the face and fed him his dead cat in his sandwich meat and taped his door shut with so much duct tape he struggled to open it and he said âyeah this is fineâ
the thing is bear doesnât even really know nikki. theyâve been âfriendsâ for a long time but he barely even listens to her, he didnât even question her concern for her dadâs cancer when Ian and Sarah both immediately poked holes in not!Nikkiâs story. all the shots of Nikki obscured in darkness showing not only is she Not there but also sheâs never been there, bear has never seen her. only the silhouette of her life on his. and if the one wish willow could puppeteer her husk more seamlessly, heâd be satisfied with the shell of herâŠ
the thing about obsession re: the cat sandwich, is that the common interpretation I've been seeing is that its an instance of real Nikki's anger manifesting through the entity, but honestly I saw it more as an instance of the entity not understanding human conventions, and having a "cannibalism/consumption as a metaphor for love" moment. Like I genuinely could imagine the entity's thought process as:
Bear loves the cat -> consumption is one of the ultimate acts of love. by eating the cat, its essence lives inside him. -> he will love me for this wonderful gift I've given him :)
it sort of reminds me of Where the Wild Things Are, when the monsters beg the protagonist to stay with them. Please don't go. I'll eat you whole. I love you so.
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 âfreakyâ 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, sheâs laid back, and that she cares very deeply for others. We see that sheâs 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.
Sheâs also characterized very well by her wardrobe, how she talks, her body language and expressions (courtesy of Inde Navarretteâs absolutely STUNNING and brilliant performance).
In a VERY short amount of time, the audience is given a VERY clear picture of Nikkiâs personality and usual behavior.
Which makes her âtransitionâ into âFreakyâ Nikki all the more horrific when Bear makes his wish.
Because even if we give Bear some grace, and acknowledge that he couldnât 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 âfeminineâ 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 couldnât be happier.
We get a whole montage of Bear and âNikkiâ as a âhappy coupleâ hanging out together and ignoring everyone around them.
Itâs not until Bear starts seeing actual consequences to his wish, such as âNikkiâ causing a scene on their date or feeding his dead cat to him, that he begins to worry about her behavior.
And even thenâEVEN THEN!!!!âBear 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 âalterâ it to make it so Nikki still loves him, but is just less intense.
He would rather use âNikkiâ 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 âfreakyâ 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 heâs 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 âFreakyâ Nikki does horrifies me as much as Bearâs treatment of Nikki and his refusal to see her as an actual person with autonomy.
For me thatâs 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 theyâve created in their mind that theyâll 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.
One thing that really stuck with me and proved that he does not even know Nikki is that Ian is the one who questions if she was using MD again. Bear did not know about it. Ian, and then Sarah, question it when Bear says Nikki is acting strangely because she's upset her father has cancer. Their immediate response was "the father she hates and doesn't talk to?" but Bear never questioned it. When Nikki tells him about her dad, he doesn't ask when they started talking again. Did he even know she had a bad relationship with her father?
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.
if i think too hard about nikkiâs experience in Obsession i feel physically ill. imagine one second youâre just walking up to your house after a night out, and then the next, youâre looking out of your own body, but youâre not longer in control. youâre a prisoner to a terrible, unnatural version of yourself that only exists because of a choice someone else made. when you scream, nobody listens. when you claw your way out for long enough to explain that this isnât you, nobody listens. when you beg the man who trapped you in this situation to put and end to it, to set your free, he just. doesnât. listen. and then when you do finally regain control, all your friends are dead, and you are covered in their blood. because of a choice someone else made
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.
discoholicmusic
turnnoffyourmind
areudirty
theartofmadeline
snowghoul
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
blakekathryn
