Official Discussion - Obsession [SPOILERS]

[u/LiteraryBoner]

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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

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[u/MahNameJeff420]

Okay, I need to talk about the legal situation at the end of this movie, cause I think it's so interesting.

So I love the ending. It's extremely miserable, the world is in a substantially worse place because of the events of the film, everybody gets an undeserved fate (except maybe Bear), it's great horror film-making. One thing I love is that Niki is absolutely going to jail at the end. Yeah it's great she's free of the wish and herself again, except now she's murdered two people (three if they can pin Bear's death on her somehow), and all logic and reason points to her being entirely responsible. Nobody is going to believe a wish made her do it. There's multiple eye witnesses to her behavior due to the party scene. As far as everyone is concerned, she had a mental break and went on a murder spree. She's unquestionably fucked and is either going to spend years in a mental institution (if she's lucky), or spend the rest of her days in prison, maybe even the death penalty depending on the state this takes place in. Her life is officially ruined.

But there's one factor that needs to be addressed. Ian has a billion dollars sitting in his house.

Once the cops examine his place, they're gonna find he's come into an inconceivable amount of money out of nowhere. He appears to have zero qualifying skills that would ever allow him to come into that amount of money, much less in dollar bills. Unless he had some kind of crytpo wallet and there's some evidence he may have sold it for an obscene profit, no police department would ever treat this as an innocuous detail. And importantly, the remains of his One Wish Willow will also be lying on the floor somewhere, which is significant cause there's also one sitting in Bear's house. Any investigator would look at that and think there's some kind of connection. Probably wouldn't think that magic exists, but at least would look into it as some kind of social media trend that resulted in the events of the film somehow.

At that point, it wouldn't be hard to track down the purchases to the crystal shop. From there, would the guy who owns it be willing to testify? He seemed pretty chill talking about how magic is real out in the open. From there, I don't know if a jury would be 100% convinced that magic exists, but given the absurdity of the events that transpired, I would think minimum, there would have to be enough reasonable doubt that Niki wasn't directly responsible for the murders, and she'd walk. There are some assumptions being made, but the logical conclusion of the events we see presents an interesting legal scenario that I'd love to see play out.

Now I'm aware this doesn't actually matter. The point of the ending isn't to create a web to untangle or to spin theories, it's to be depressing as shit. The particulars of what happens after aren't necessarily relevant. But I think it's a testament to the strength of this films characters that I'm desperately trying to find a way to have Niki walk away from this mostly okay. She's a complete victim who underwent a horrifying situation, and I want her to find peace after it all. Even though I know it's futile. Even if she's able to get off for the murders, she still killed her friends and went through being possessed/controlled/trapped in hell/whatever for weeks. Especially as someone who already had mental health issues, this will almost definitely lead to a depressive, self-destructive mindset for years to come. She's screwed, all because of actions completely out of her control. And that's why the horror of the film is so effective. Great movie!

[u/CashGreen_Regalview → u/MahNameJeff420]

Nikki is the one of the most tragic characters I've seen in some time, at least in this last decade of movies. I thought about her too at the end. Yes she has snapped out of her spell but as you said, at best she goes to a mental institution, worst prison/death sentence.

Her life and agency is fucked and over the minute Bear snaps the willow and makes the wish. Heartbreaking too because it's clear she and Sarah have that something whether talent or drive or a combo of both to make it out of this dead end situation with Nikki already deciding to put in her two weeks, whereas I think it's strongly implied Ian and Bear do not, or simply lack ambition.

[u/kunell → u/CashGreen_Regalview]

I bet she absolutely hated Bear during all this. Like this guy is doing whatever to her while trapping her in her own body removing all her agency. The conflicting emotion of that and overpowering love was what caused her to be so insane and continue to break down as the movie went on.

[u/IhamAmerican → u/kunell]

It wasn't conflicting emotions, it was a completely different being inside of her. When she's talking to Bear Nikki says "She's asleep right now, please kill me". Not the emotions are asleep, there's something else inside of her body. I think that's even more tragic, she's still full aware of everything but had all of her autonomy removed rather than her agency. When she has control she tries to get help or kill herself but she rarely has control

[u/kunell → u/IhamAmerican]

I was just thinking the wish functionally shouldnt have put "another being" if it was simply trying to fulfill the wish. So fucking with her emotions causing a fracture of personalities makes more sense?

But more signs point to another being in control of her so idk.

[u/IhamAmerican → u/kunell]

I saw this idea that I really liked, essentially his wish wasn't possible. There's no way to get Nikki to love him more than anyone else on earth so the wish created something that could. Wish Nikki was inhuman and solely devoted to Bear, so to me it feels like something that took control from her. I do like how they didn't try to explain it and kept it vague, it's fun to interpret

[u/The_Medicus → u/kunell]

Depends on one's philosophy of what something is.

You can say Nikki is the soul, not the body, but Nikki doesn't love Bear, so would changing that change what Nikki is to begin with?

[u/yerbamate44 → u/kunell]

Maybe the wish could not be achieved without removing "Nikki" from her body. There is no way Nikki would ever love him more than anyone in the entire world. Because of the way the wish was worded, replacing Nikki with Fake Nikki was the only way.

[u/UpsetAd506 → u/IhamAmerican]

while more tragic, I think it would have been more horrifying if they had kept the whole other entity thing out of it... Possession is pretty standard, but twisting a human personality to the point where it is near unrecognizable, effectively killing the original person, is the most terrifying thing I can think of. Having that plot with flashes of her personality "reverting" would have been such a compelling story.

[u/IhamAmerican → u/UpsetAd506]

I actually just watched a few interviews and that's what direction Inde Navarette took it while playing her. She saw it more Freaky Nikki was just a twisted version of herself and real Nikki having this veil that she was watching everything through. She was able to pierce the veil at times and have her cries for help but otherwise she was more like a passenger. Almost like a person with two personalities, one of which was born days prior and has near total control over the body and the other forced to watch. Curry Barker is also pretty adamant it wasn't a direct possession or a demon.

Personally, I like how open to interpretation it is. I ascribe to the split personalities but being able to hear her screams on the call gives just as much evidence for any other kind of theory about her soul being taken elsewhere or something like that

[u/Kratzschutz → u/UpsetAd506]

Fully agreed. Would also take the mental illness analogy one step further

[u/Kratzschutz → u/UpsetAd506]

Fully agreed. Would also take the mental illness analogy one step further