Scary Movies: Obsession

After that day’s shift, Nikki needs a ride home and Bear drives her. On the way she asks him if he likes her, but he’s too scared to admit his true feelings. After she leaves the car, he screams at himself in frustration for missing his one chance at letting her know how he feels. He notices the willow branch in the back seat and breaks it, saying he wishes Nikki would “love him more than anybody else in the world.”

Nikki is instantly back at his car window, asking him to spend the night. He’s taken aback by her change in behavior, especially the weird things she starts saying. She claims her father is sick and dying in a transparent attempt to keep him from leaving. They end up in bed together where she kisses him, then stops abruptly and screams.

When Bear wakes up the next morning, Nikki had made a sort of memorial out of the remains of his cat. They start dating, but her erratic behavior continues. She watches him sleep at night–all night–has a breakdown in a restaurant when she thinks he doesn’t love her, and makes a weird-tasting sandwich for him that he suspects is made out of the cat. One day when he’s scheduled at the record store and she’s not, she stands by the door all day, waiting for him to get home. When he arrives home, she’s soiled herself as she hadn’t moved from the spot even long enough to use the bathroom. Still, he’s getting regular sex and has a hot girl to hang out with, so he basically goes along with things.

Ian is very concerned at the sudden change in Nikki’s demeanor, thinking that she’s somehow using Bear. He reveals to Bear that Nikki’s father is fine and not ill at all. Bear’s not having it though, thinking Ian is just jealous, though he is privately concerned about Nikki. He calls the One Willow Wish customer support line. They know who it is calling already and when he asks if he can take back a wish, they explain that wishes are for a lifetime and only his death will end Nikki’s love for him. They allow him to hear Nikki’s thoughts, which are just a non-stop scream.

At a party Ian throws, Nikki disturbs all the party-goers with her bizarre antics. During a card game that has truth-or-date type questions, Bear gets a card that says he should kiss the girl to his left. Nikki crosses over, pulls the chair of the girl to his left away, and kneels, waiting for her kiss. When she gets a card to tell a story, she tells a really strange tale about a woman who was placed under a spell to love someone. She breaks a bottle and rakes it across her face, and Bear drives her to the emergency room, but she refuses treatment because it would mean leaving him for a short time.

That night, Nikki is temporarily lucid and asks Bear to kill her. He refuses and leaves to see another co-worker, Sarah, who’s asked to meet him privately. Bear sits in the passenger seat of Sarah’s car while they talk, and she says that Ian and Nikki had a casual sexual relationship prior to her dating Bear, and that she’s afraid Nikki is using him to get back at Ian. Suddenly, Nikki appears at the car window and breaks it, reaching in and smashing Sarah’s head against the steering wheel repeatedly. Sarah is obviously dead and Nikki tells Bear she will take care of the body.

Horrified, Bear returns to the store where he bought the One Wish Willow in the first place, with the thought that a second wish could reverse the earlier wish. It turns out he can’t make a second wish as you only get one wish in your whole life–but Ian could make a wish that would reverse the earlier one, couldn’t he? Bear drives to Ian’s house to make the request before Nikki does something even more awful out of her love for him.

Will Bear get to Ian’s house before Nikki can violently misbehave again? Will he be able to convince Ian that the wishes are real? Is it possible even to reverse an earlier wish in that way, or will it simply make things worse and more complicated? Of course, there’s always the fact that ending his own life will end the power of the wish and release Nikki from the spell. And then again, Nikki hasn’t had the chance to make her wish yet, either….

My personal theory about this movie is that the reason Nikki screams or asks for death during lucid moments is because she’s not really in love with Bear at all, as she was indifferent to him before he made his wish. The wish is in some way overriding her will, forcing her to be in love, even though fundamentally she’s still the same person. Her statements during the party scene show she’s well aware of what’s happening, and it’s unbearable for her to experience this disconnect between her true feelings and what some part of her brain is forcing her to do. As long as Bear is alive and the wish is in effect, she must suffer this overwhelming, constant, and existential damage to her psyche.

Obsession (2026)
Story/Plot/Characters— A really twisted, Monkey’s Paw-type premise, well executed. Acting is good, script is tight, characters are believable. (3.5 points)
Special Effects— Not at all a special effects movie, and the small amount of gore that we see later in the movie is obviously theatre make-up. (.5 points)
Scariness— A wish gone wrong is a great idea, albeit one with consequences that are more weird than scary. Still, Nikki’s escalating bizarre, and eventually murderous, behavior becomes creepier and creepier as the movie progresses. I’m not generally a fan of jump scares as I think they tend to be pretty cheap, but there’s one really effective one that bumps this category up a notch. (1.5 points)
Atmosphere/Freakiness— Set in a workaday suburban world of tract housing and strip mall record stores, there’s not a whole lot of atmosphere, although I think the movie’s message is that Bear is just a regular guy and this could happen to anyone. Nikki’s decorating around Bear’s house with cat remains and duct tape does give the impression that she’s building some kind of disturbed love lair. (1 point)
Total=6.5 points (Pretty Good)

A highly effective low-budget horror movie with a killer premise, pretty decent acting and direction, and passable production values. All in all, a fun and twisted way to spend an evening, and a bit more thought-provoking than most scary flicks.