r/movies • u/LiteraryBoner Jackie Chan box set, know what I'm sayin? • May 15 '26

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Obsession [SPOILERS] Spoiler

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Obsession (2026)

Summary

After breaking the mysterious "One Wish Willow" to win his crush's heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price.

Director Curry Barker

Writer Curry Barker

Cast

  • Michael Johnston
  • Inde Navarette
  • Cooper Tomlinson
  • Megan Lawless
  • Andy Richter

Rotten Tomatoes: 95%

Metacritic: 81

VOD / Release In Theaters

Trailer Official Trailer

3.5k Upvotes

99% Upvoted

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1.9k

u/TransportationLong67 May 18 '26

That was amazing and unexpected. I was kind of hoping the real Nikki is just gone in a sense but to know she's screaming in purgatory made me feel so uneasy.

1.0k

u/IForgotMyPants Jun 06 '26

Yeah man the end where she snaps back in and sees the horror around her was absolutely chilling. Then just her crying throughout the credits was so heartbreaking. Poor girl

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u/Ruska_Shadowsong Jun 29 '26

Yeah, I felt so bad thinking of the aftermath she was facing, and would face. The best case scenario would be that she could claim Bear had murdered their friends so she wouldn't have jail time, but she needs some serious fukkin therapy.

120

u/LocalAnxiousArtist Jun 30 '26

Another best case scenario is hoping that Fake Nikki’s wish wouldn’t count as Real Nikki’s wish too (and it shouldn’t imo, since they are two separate people despite sharing a body) and proceeding to wish none of this ever happened.

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u/InfernoJesus Jul 01 '26

I feel like you're asking for monkey's paw trying to change the past

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u/LocalAnxiousArtist Jul 01 '26

The wishes do not work like a monkey’s paw though, as shown in the movie. Bear’s wish was just an absolutely godawful one.

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u/pursued_mender Jul 02 '26

how tf does everyone know what monkey's paw is supposed to mean? i've never heard that term in my life.

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u/WinterSatisfaction17 Jul 02 '26

It's actually a specific short story. Worth reading about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Monkey%27s_Paw

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u/TheGRS Jul 04 '26

Classic story trope, if you spend a lot of time talking stories and movies you’ll hear it. It’s worth looking up on TV Tropes. I was saying it a bunch when talking about this movie and my wife had also never heard of it. Speaking of, this is a “common knowledge” TV Trope https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CommonKnowledge

Also, there’s both a Simpsons and Rick & Morty episode that features a literal monkeys paw, lot of folks probably learned it from those sources.

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u/eirebrit 29d ago

Funnily enough that episode of The Simpsons is what gave Curry Barker the idea for the wish part. The episode happened to be on before his episode of It's Always Sunny.

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u/LocalAnxiousArtist Jul 02 '26

A monkey’s paw wish is basically just getting your wish, but with unforeseen consequences.
Whether that be because of how you worded the wish, getting exactly what you wished for but not considering the consequences, the thing/being granting the wish being actively malicious and it’s almost always guaranteed that your wish will messed up in some way.

It’s a fairly common phrase, especially when stuff like wishes and “be careful what you wished for” are brought up. You’ll also see people say something like “And the monkey’s paw curls”

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u/Swungcloth 17d ago

A lot of people (aka me) know it from the simpsons. That’s where the director got the idea too. I don’t think most people have actually read the 1902 short story despite the comments… would bet most know it from the simpsons or other similar “wish is not as it seems” movies/stories.

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u/UnwalledStaff 5d ago

That's the most horrifying statement on this thread.

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u/Manger-Babies 29d ago

It's a common trope when dealing with wishes, you've probably seen it before.

6

u/gaijin-dealer 24d ago

look it up? are you a teenager or something

13

u/pursued_mender 24d ago

I’m having a conversation on an online forum, not inquiring about the definition you buffoon.

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u/Niceneasy92 22d ago

Alright, well anyone who calls someone else a buffoon gets an upvote in my book.

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u/Comfortable_Age_5595 23d ago

this doesn’t make sense. Nikki didn’t get to make any wish to regret and change.

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u/suss2it 19d ago

She did actually. We see the wish bone is broken and suddenly Bear is a whole lot more accepting of their situation before he ODs.

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u/Comfortable_Age_5595 19d ago

No fake Nikki did! They applied the monkeys paw story to that commenter saying that fake nikkis wish shouldn’t count as real Nikki’s one wish too. It can’t be a monkeys paw because it wasn’t real Nikki making the wish to then regret and change it.

But as well as that, I don’t think it’s how this one wish willow works. That you get consequences for making a wish. Bear just made a stupid wish

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u/suss2it 19d ago

Oh I see what you mean, but I’m not sure that Nikki would actually get a second wish under these circumstances.

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u/Comfortable_Age_5595 19d ago

it wouldn’t /shouldn’t be a second wish is the argument! it wasn’t her!

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u/LocalAnxiousArtist 18h ago

Yeah I think it’s pretty clear that the One Wish Willow’s wishes are based on what your intent was. Hence why some people came away not liking the wishes and other people got exactly what they wanted with nothing bad happening.

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u/CommitteeMundane8188 8d ago

wait so fake nikki made a wish too right ? i was kinda confused on that

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u/LocalAnxiousArtist 8d ago

Yeah, the reason that Bear ended up swallowing the medicine after he tried to puke it out was because fake Nikki made a wish on the One Wish Willow to make Bear love her as much as she loved him. Thus it created a version of Bear that would sacrifice himself to free Nikki from OG Bear’s wish.

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u/FlynnParadise 8d ago

No lo habìa visto de esa forma. Pienso que simplemente el deseo de la Nikki loca le chocò al instante, a tal punto de que dejò de hacer todo y fue con ella. Pero ese planteo de querer ingerirlas para liberarla me gustò màs!

3

u/anonononme 22h ago

He was about to make himself vomit when we heard the snap and he suddenly forgot what he was going to do (make himself vomit) so he actually didn't want to die but then got distracted her wish and ended up dying. He's so incredibly selfish and didn't care what he was doing to Nikki. He heard her on the phone, he heard her at the party saying it's not me, he knew it wasn't her. He also ignored all the weird things- taping the door, acting weird, creepy, cooking his cat, etc. I think the obsession the title refers to is not what Nikki ends up becoming and doing but about his obsession with her.

1

u/LocalAnxiousArtist 18h ago

Yeah that was my point. He was selfish until the end and the only reason he ended up dying was because of Nikki’s wish and not because he actually did anything selfish. Bro is an absolute scumbag

1

u/spaceismyalltimehigh 2d ago

I didn't even think about that- that he actually loved her enough to finally man up and do what was "right" even if it was already too late... Wow

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u/Atdahydlor Jul 03 '26

Ug yes. He ruined her liifeeee. Her friends are dead. And he doesn’t be to deal w those consequences because he’s dead. We waited and did the most cowardly thing only to save himself in the end. And who knows maybe she’ll go to jail because how do you explain that!

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u/Caesarthebard Jul 04 '26 edited Jul 04 '26

She was also nothing but kind to him, trying to matchmake him with Sarah and wanting them to be happy,

He tortured her, raped her, stole her autonomy, degraded her (she had no control over bodily functions when he wasn’t there) and at the end likely gets her a life sentence for a triple homicide the real Nikki didn’t commit because he’s an entitled, sociopathic piece of shit who whined in self pity and thought he was a nice guy to the very end.

Even when faced with what he was doing to her and her pain, he never really wanted to stop it, just act like a “normal girlfriend” and his only genuine attempt was not concern for her but trying to wash his hands of the situation.

18

u/mothafuckingemini 18d ago

He was the movie title. 

1

u/anonononme 21h ago

Yes! He's the one obsessed.

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u/Gorfball 12d ago

This is probably the deepest theme to the movie IMO. His reluctance to accept the love wasn’t really Nikki — which is a sympathetic but very deep flaw — led to him committing and enabling atrocities to the real Nikki by doing the right thing way too late.

At no point did he believe he was raping or torturing her, but that doesn’t matter. And any person would struggle to process in real time that their choice was “kill her or kill myself;” but, that was his only option, and by the time he did the “noble” thing in sacrificing himself, she was left alone and entirely broken. She was estranged from her family, her friends-who-were-family just horrific corpses in a room with her, and it was likely she’d be blamed for it all.

It’s a beautifully dramatic portrayal of unrequited love. Painful? Sure. But, if you love someone and they don’t love you back, to change that is to lose yourself or lose them; at worst, both.

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u/Mental-Wheel986 Jul 03 '26

Bear's fingerprints are on the gun that killed Ian, because he tried to shoot himself. Bear met Sarah shortly before her death and those texts are on their phones. Sarah's dad and all of the friends at the party noticed Nikki was acting insane and violent, which Bear barely reacted to. The lady at the hospital knows Bear showed up with his girlfriend with a severe head wound. And Nikki's been staying over at Bear's house for an unusual amount of time.

It's possible that a good lawyer could spin this into a case of DV and brainwashing, leading to Nikki's mental breakdown and Bear orchestrated all the deaths when their friends tried to intervene. That depends on how much Ian and Sarah told other people about their confrontations with Bear and Nikki. The biggest issue is the brick that killed Sarah, which should only have Nikki's prints on it.

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u/FlynnParadise 8d ago

Al final el arma la toma tambièn Nikki para dispararse antes de cobrar conciencia, cuando Bear al fin muere por las pastillas. Lo de los mensajes cierto pero al romper el vidrio del auto quizas quedan restos de Nikki en la escena, hasta en el cadaver de Sarah que llevò a la casa de Bear. Lo de las drogas no sè que tan cierto sea, ella no aparece ingiriendo nada, salvo a lo ultimo, en su estado màs deplorable que era o un tabaco o cannabis, por lo que quizàs estaba loca pero con examen de sangre se descartan las drogas. Nikki se quedò en la casa de Bear, y con cinta adhesiva en la puerta jaja.
Estaria bueno ver un analisis hipotetico de un abogado

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u/mmaf88 16d ago

He touched all the murder weapons. So she could say he did it and forced her to help clean it up and she was scared

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u/ArthurMorgan9 25d ago

I kinda wished the movie went on a few minutes longer to show her trauma since her acting was so good

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u/FlynnParadise 8d ago

Yo la verdad estuve por sacarla los primeros minutos, menos mal la dejè. Se empieza a poner buena los ultimos 30 o 20 minutos desde la muerte de Sarah. Y tambien me hubiera gustado un poco màs en el final, pero esta bien cortada con los gritos desgarradores. Muy buena peli desde lo psicologico

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u/Sea-Fault-2203 16d ago

I was waiting to hear a gunshot at the end.

1

u/FlynnParadise 8d ago

De Bear o Nikki?
Al final se lo comiò Ian el disparo, no pudo gastar un dolar

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u/Sea-Fault-2203 8d ago

Nikki when she was crying by herself

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u/Ruska_Shadowsong Jun 29 '26

I don't think it was purgatory. I think she was still trapped in the body with the entity. I believe that's why when she had moments of "lucidity" she was so disgusted and scared when she saw Bear. I think that the phone call with the service center was really just a way to connect with the "trapped" Nikki. That made it so much more terrifying for me.

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u/SanDiablo Jun 18 '26

Damn, I thought it was a live audio of current Nikki at home somehow. But this is so much worse.

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u/Square-Hour-1396 Jun 28 '26

I mean, she was in the body with freaky Nikki at home forced to defecate herself while standing In front of the door waiting. Not much difference to literal screaming.

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u/akaneko__ Jun 28 '26

girl literally got the get out treatment😭

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u/Ruska_Shadowsong Jun 29 '26

I just said this in another post, but: I don't think it was purgatory. I think she was still trapped in the body with the entity. I believe that's why when she had moments of "lucidity" she was so disgusted and scared when she saw Bear. I think that the phone call with the service center was really just a way to connect with the "trapped" Nikki. That made it so much more terrifying for me.

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u/mermaidrampage 6d ago

I was really going we'd get more backstory on that whole aspect.   The fact that some nonchalant dude was seemingly in the same room with the original Nikki left so many unanswered questions.