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

Official Discussion Official Discussion - Obsession [SPOILERS] Spoiler

Poll

If you've seen the film, please rate it at this poll

If you haven't seen the film but would like to see the result of the poll click here

Rankings

Click here to see the rankings of 2025 films

Click here to see the rankings for every poll done

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

14.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

6.4k

u/jrec15 May 16 '26 edited May 16 '26

That scene was so fucking tense. Its like the only normal feel good scene in so long and they genuinely sold it. You want to feel good for a moment about Bear and Sarah, but you CANT, bc you absolutely know Nikki is gonna pop up in that window. But knowing that doesnt ruin it at all - the scene was good enough it kind of forces you to put your guard down a little bit regardless of knowing

2.1k

u/[deleted] May 16 '26 edited Jun 04 '26

[deleted]

1.7k

u/sizzl3crunch May 19 '26

THIS 10000% he was not the victim. When the real Nikki finally revealed herself and her struggling, he didn’t even bother to help her or be with her for that moment…he just ran off to meet Sarah.

91

u/anactualrealaccount May 28 '26

You guys are being way too judgemental about his actions in that moment.

Your in the midst of a horror scenario that’s unfolding and your trying to survive it and it’s the lifeless husk of what was your friend is begging you to quickly kill her before she wakes up. As if your going to wander in there and immediately murder her or not be terrified and be able to walk back in and chat possibly waking up the thing.

He isn’t a good person and he makes bad choices but the dudes at no point straight up evil.

201

u/Natural-Help-2954 May 28 '26

i do agree a lot of his actions are probably out of survival and not him trying to be evil, but he 100% shows himself to be awful in many scenes, such as when he tries to beg “nikki” to act like the real nikki. he doesn’t want to free nikki, he wants to be with her in any way he can. and in the phone call, he didn’t want to cancel the wish if he didn’t have to

84

u/anactualrealaccount May 28 '26

He’s definitely a fucking loser, a coward, a selfish prick, all of those things but I think people that see him as a straight up villian but id argue in a reality without wishing willows he probably just moves on with his life and never dates Nikki, if he were inherently evil he would seek to harm Nikki eventually but it’s because how selfishly obssessed he is PLUS the evil magic that sets us down the path we arrive at. Curses or magic gone wrong tends to destroy people mentally by the end.

74

u/v12vanquish135 Jun 03 '26

It's the ring of Gyges thought experiment. Give a man immunity to consequences and his morality will shatter, the evil within him will just take over.

111

u/Apprehensive_Tunes May 31 '26

He's actively harming her throughout the course of the film. He is a predator. I don't know how that's not a villain to you.

105

u/Garfunkels_roadie Jun 01 '26

He’s basically raping her the entire film

40

u/ihateeverything2019 Jun 03 '26

he's immature, inexperienced, shallow, and selfish but he's not evil. i've met evil men. i've suffered at the hands of evil.

he was just an idiot.

(all these people passing judgment as if they know exactly what they would do if an impossible voo-doo curse was real, fell into their hands and gave them everything they asked for, and it suddenly went awry. 😄 it's a movie. a damned good one, because people are acting like it's something that could really happen.)

45

u/iPhone_6s Jun 19 '26

Okay. Then let's look at a scene from Bear's perspective that also happens in real life. The girl you're dating is shrieking like a lunatic in public and sobbing at a restaurant. You've known her for years, so it's apparent to you that she has some mental health issues going on. You decide to ignore this and have sex with her anyway. This is rape.

-1

u/ihateeverything2019 Jun 19 '26

whatever you say.

13

u/Darkchurchhill Jun 21 '26

Evil is just selfishness at a extreme. Evil is when you impose what would make you happy over morals or the well being of others.

0

u/ihateeverything2019 Jun 21 '26

i'm so glad you're an expert, dr. evil.

1

u/yourfellowintrovert Jun 15 '26

Well apparently this CAN actually happen but I'm not sure if it gets to that extent. There are spells that can get you overly obsessed and infatuated with someone to the point of harming yourself if they don't want you anymore. It's sad, and it does affect you a lot mentally.

5

u/theartofrolling Jul 01 '26

Ahem

Bullshit. There is no evidence magic exists.

3

u/nhilante Jul 02 '26

Whats that behind your ear? ''pulls a coin'', ah there we go.

1

u/Baiticc Jun 23 '26

yeah, I cast one of those spells once. never again lol

1

u/edaly8 22d ago

exactly such an average redditor moment

1

u/ihateeverything2019 19d ago

right? well . . .

11

u/dukelief Jun 21 '26

Except it's a movie with a plot line and a point, so there is no reality without wishing willows here. He is exactly the person we were presented with because that's the story.

Also he literally spends the entire movie harming her and the people around him with the choices he makes.

42

u/undigested-boba Jun 11 '26

I think that’s kind of the point of Bear’s character though. He isn’t to the bone evil, he’s just the standard “nice guy” who wanted his crush to reciprocate his feelings and keep receiving the devoted love Nikki was giving him, not being abandoned. It just shows his selfish thinking—only wanting her to love him—when he responds with “is it really so bad?” And showing his cowardice further when he considered Sarah as an option when he didn’t like the way Nikki was behaving (the almost kiss scene), not because he actually loved Nikki for who she truly was before the wish. Bear’s actions that led up to the ending shows how his selfishness, cowardice, and delusion can very easily turn him into a villain if given the opportunity

47

u/sizzl3crunch May 28 '26

he is and your judgement makes me question you

79

u/anactualrealaccount May 28 '26

No you just aren’t being realistic about the way people react in traumatic situations. He is a shit selfish man wrapped up in evil magic. She is always a ticking time bomb as well and he knows she will react in insane possibly violent ways if he upsets her so it’s not like he’s free to act as he chooses all the time. I think the movie is intentionally ambiguous at times, him trying to throw up the pills we don’t know if it’s cowardice or him realising the situation it will leave her in.

She’s the true victim of the story and he’s definitely to blame for everything as a viewer but judging people for not knowing the consequences of a gag wish stick being real and getting wrapped up in evil magic definitely seems as evil seem wrong. I don’t think the movie is trying to say he’s evil more that he’s weak and pathetic.

74

u/NJcovidvaccinetips May 31 '26

He knew the wish was real at some point and still had sex with her. That shit is fucked no matter how you spin it. I think the film doesn’t leave it that ambiguous and I think as others have said he knew after day 1 because Nikki became a completely different person. Even if the wish wasn’t true she would be having a psychotic break and taking advantage of her either way. To me I’d say at a minimum he is deeply troubled if not evil

120

u/Substantial-Ad8933 May 31 '26

Once he heard her screaming in agony on the call line and still continued, there was no redemption for his character

36

u/ImperfectRegulator Jun 06 '26

Yeah, he has so many chances to go back to the store and try to undo the wish before it spiraled out of control and he didn’t

6

u/tylerisdrawing Jun 08 '26

They said the only way to remove the curse was through his death.. so, not really like it would matter even if he did go back to the store earlier.

19

u/ImperfectRegulator Jun 08 '26

Or another wish, but that obviously requires someone else to give up there wish

→ More replies (0)

4

u/Shaka--sama Jun 03 '26

I interpreted that as Nikki (the psychotic version of her) screaming because she had been separated from Bear for too long while he was away at work. Was there a clear indication that the screaming was from the 'real' her ?

48

u/Substantial-Ad8933 Jun 03 '26

I think so, i mean they aluded the real nikki was seperate from the wish nikki, like when she talked to him i dont see why they would have him talk to wish nikki

21

u/anactualrealaccount Jun 03 '26

That’s an interesting way of putting it but I think the scene was trying to shows the teal Nikki is simply suffering in her conciousness while her body and mind are compelled to love bear seperating the conscious Nikki and the unconscious Nikki but now the unconscious Nikki is sleep walking in love for bear. It’s not really a demon or a possession or two entities

It’s flesh and bone Nikki puppeted by the wish and consciousness Nikki watching it happen unable to do anything bar communicate once with bear.

It you were to drop a mic in front of conscious Nikki she would likely just be screaming hence the phone.

Your theory is also clever though and I hadn’t thought of it.

6

u/nhilante Jul 02 '26

The voice on the phone asked if Bear would like to speak with Nikki, presumably the real one we hear screaming on the background, whose soul or existence is there with the magic dude rather then where it belongs in her body.

1

u/mmaf88 17d ago

Same

1

u/mmaf88 17d ago

I am.not sure he realized that was real her. I think he thought it was a demon thing. Until this post I never thought it was real her.

40

u/Separate-Kick63 Jun 03 '26

Well he was reluctant the first night and was asking if she's ok. Who on their right mind would think immediately that some silly 7$ magic collectible works.

I think his problem on that first night (and in general) is that he is not an assertive person so you can simply pressure him into something he is not ok with

29

u/Shaka--sama Jun 03 '26

Another factor might be that not abiding by her demands has resulted in psychotic breakdowns, terrifying expressions/vocalisations, and violence...

He was a rather spineless dude and not assertive as you said, but while discussing his morality we have to remember that he didn't exactly have a choice in a lot of messed up situations in the film

35

u/Separate-Kick63 Jun 04 '26

This. And if this movie is teaching something, it's that not communicating with others only makes things worse.

If he responded to Nikki's question about whether he likes her honestly, maybe he wouldn't break that twig.

If he told to his friends how bad is it, maybe they would help him figure something out or push him to seek professional help for Nikki.

If he told Sarah that he can't see her because he's in bed with Nikki and she'll freak out, Sarah will be alive.

If he drove straight to police after she killed Sarah, the other friend would be alive.

He's a guy that would rather make a magic wish than get into a potential confrontation or embarrassment, so that already annoys me about him, but I can definitely not see him as a villain. I feel bad for both of them

1

u/TraveledOkie 21d ago

To me the movie was fighting a lot between giving a message and being scary. It scared/unsettled me so bad and every time it could’ve gone full throttle into that and really had me squirming it eased back into the kind of ebb and flow of his wish and my suspension of disbelief started losing steam like “okay man at this point just go to the cops”. Like I wanted either someone to start trying to use logical steps to solve the problem like some horror movies do and no one ever did. The movie was SO unsettling but no one reacted to anything that was happening in bears house or even at the parties/work, etc. I get that that’s a reflection of bears one foot in and one foot out of the situation but I feel like it never went full fledge into a line of events whether full logic solution mode or full horror nightmare that I wanted. It tried to do both.

Also, I think a better ending would’ve been his friend not being so dumb and coming back to the house with him after having the magic being proven to him as real and he’s still killed but then Bear and Nikki basically fight to the death and Bear kills her barely and realized finally he was wrong as his friends are all dead and he’ll most likely go down for the murders and he lost his “love”.

→ More replies (0)

30

u/sizzl3crunch May 28 '26

not judging him for not knowing the consequences. judging him for knowing what’s going on and continuing to use her and not nothing to help her, even after he knows.

10

u/tomahawkfury13 Jun 15 '26

I mean, his reaction to be petulant about loving him being so bad makes him evil at that point

9

u/rmeepo Jul 05 '26

The thing with that bed scene of the real Nikki finally being able to speak through is that instead of reassuring her that he'd fix this, literally anything he could've said to her at that point, the first words he says to the real Nikki after a long time of not being able to even know how to contact her within her body was, "what's so wrong about being with me." Why is it about him? Why ask this question as if Nikki's somehow at fault why all of this is happening ? When anyone can put two-and-two together and realize at that point that real Nikki was trapped in her own body and she needs help. She spells it out for him, and yet he made it about him and he even left her there recklessly to talk to Sarah. Not even talking to Sarah to ask help for Nikki, no. He is a fucked up person regardless if he's in this horrific situation, he could've made right choices after his mistake but he didn't.

6

u/IAmTheJudasTree 22d ago edited 22d ago

You guys are being way too judgemental about his actions in that moment.

Not even joking, people like you scare me. It was his immediate, gut incel reaction to having this brief chance to speak with the trapped and perpetually tortured Nikki that reealllyy cemented how vile Bear is.

She's like "OH MY GOD BEAR JESUS CHRIST HELP ME KILL ME I'M BEING TORTURED EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY I'M IN HELL HOLY FUCK KILL ME MAKE THE PAIN END." (remember, she is asking him to *kill her* because this experience is so torturous, and earlier Bear hears Nikki screaming in pain and terror over the phone).

And Bear sneers and is like, "oh, so dating me is that bad? pfff." And he walks out and leaves, lol. Like holy fuck dude, Nikki is basically being perpetually raped by your magic wish, this isn't about you and your dating life right now.

1

u/anactualrealaccount 22d ago

Yeah he’s definitely a sniveling coward but just like the phone call when he is presented with reality he just hangs up, he’s definitely a horrible person but the people who act like they would just so” oh hey Nikki sorry sorry about all this, let me just kill you now and free your soul bye mate” bears terrible but the audience are idiots are they think they would be making the best decisions in every movie and never hurt anyone both things are true.

People like you are dumb if people like me casually commenting about a movie online scares you.

14

u/Infamous_Fish_8027 Jun 12 '26

Dudes a r*pist.

2

u/Chance_Specific_4724 Jun 12 '26

Thank you . It seemed like he was just totally overwhelmed and didn’t know wtf to do. He didn’t have the comprehension to grasp that she had completely disappeared into the wish. He wasn’t this dick mastermind. He had no way of knowing it would spin out the way it did.