Editor’s note: The below contains spoilers for Obsession.
One of the big hits of the year so far has been Curry Barker’s Obsession, the inventive horror tale that takes unrequited love to dangerous extremes. Michael Johnston plays Bear, a mild-mannered music store employee who is in love with his friend and colleague, Nikki (Indi Navarette). Bear buys a mysterious One Wish Willow, a trinket that offers the user one wish if they snap it in half. After being turned down romantically by Nikki, he breaks the willow and wishes for her to love him more than anything else.
The wish comes true, but it also becomes life-threatening as Nikki’s affection is taken to the extreme. There are many gasp-worthy moments in the film, as Nikki’s need to keep Bear in her life leads to people — and animals — facing grisly ends. However, one relatively small moment in the movie is the true moment of terror.
‘Obsession’s Most Disturbing Scene Takes Place in a Bedroom
The moment in question comes after one of the early signs that Bear’s wish may have had a sinister outcome. Nikki, who is smitten with him through the power of the wish, confides in him that her father is dying of cancer as she convinces him to let her stay over at his house. In a later scene, once the two have officially started dating, they’re on a dinner date when Bear’s friend Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) calls him, saying that Nikki said she saw him as a “little brother” before the wish, and alerts him to the fact that she had lied about her father having cancer. After Bear confronts her with the latter, Nikki begins to get upset, screaming “No! No! No!” and insisting it doesn’t matter. Alarmed, Bear calms her down, and the pair continues their date.
Collider Exclusive · Horror Survival Quiz Which Horror Villain Do You Have the Best Chance of Surviving? Jason Voorhees · Michael Myers · Freddy Krueger · Pennywise · Chucky
Five killers. Five completely different ways to die — if you’re not smart enough, fast enough, or self-aware enough to avoid it. Only one of them is the villain your particular set of instincts gives you a fighting chance against. Eight questions will figure out which one.
🏕️Jason
🔪Michael
💤Freddy
🎈Pennywise
🪆Chucky
01
Something feels wrong. You can’t explain it — you just know. What do you do? First instincts are the difference between the survivor and the first act casualty.
02
Where are you most likely to find yourself when things go wrong? Setting is everything in horror. Where you are determines which rules apply.
03
What is your most reliable survival asset? Every survivor has a quality the villain didn’t account for. What’s yours?
04
What kind of fear is hardest for you to fight through? Knowing your weakness is the first step to not dying because of it.
05
You’re with a group when things start going wrong. What’s your role? Horror movies are brutally clear about who survives group situations and who doesn’t.
06
What’s the horror movie mistake you’re most likely to make? Honest self-assessment is a survival skill. Denial is not.
07
What’s your best weapon against something that can’t be stopped by conventional means? Every horror villain has a weakness. The survivors are always the ones who find it.
08
It’s the final scene. You’re the last one standing. How did you make it? The final survivor always has a reason. What’s yours?
Your Survival Odds Have Been Calculated Your Best Chance Is Against…
Your instincts, your strengths, and your particular way of thinking under pressure point to one villain you actually have a fighting chance against. Everyone else — good luck.
Camp Crystal Lake · Friday the 13th
Jason Voorhees
Jason is relentless, but he is also predictable — and that is the gap you would exploit.
He moves in straight lines toward his target. He doesn’t strategise, doesn’t adapt, doesn’t outsmart. He simply pursues.
Your ability to keep moving, use the environment, and resist the panic that freezes most victims gives you a genuine edge.
The Crystal Lake survivors were always the ones who stopped running in circles and started thinking about terrain, water, and distance.
You think like that. Which means Jason, for all his indestructibility, would face someone who simply refused to be where he expected.
Haddonfield, Illinois · Halloween
Michael Myers
Michael watches before he moves. He is patient, methodical, and almost impossible to detect — until it’s too late for anyone who isn’t paying close enough attention.
But you are paying attention. You notice the shape in the window, the car parked slightly wrong, the silence where there should be sound.
Michael’s power lies in the invisibility of ordinary suburbia — the fact that nothing ever looks wrong until it already is.
Your spatial awareness and instinct to map every room, every exit, and every shadow before you need them is precisely the quality Laurie Strode had.
You are not a victim waiting to happen. You are someone who already suspects something is wrong — and acts on it.
Elm Street · A Nightmare on Elm Street
Freddy Krueger
Freddy wins by getting inside your head — using your own fears, your own memories, your own subconscious as weapons against you. That strategy requires a target who can be destabilised.
You are harder to destabilise than most. You’ve faced uncomfortable truths about yourself and you haven’t looked away.
The survivors on Elm Street were always the ones who understood what was happening and chose to face it rather than flee from it.
Freddy’s greatest weakness is that his power evaporates in the presence of someone who refuses to give him the fear he feeds on.
Your psychological resilience — the ability to stay grounded when reality itself becomes unreliable — is exactly the quality that keeps you alive here.
Derry, Maine · It
Pennywise
Pennywise is ancient, shapeshifting, and feeds on terror — but it has one critical vulnerability: it cannot function against someone who genuinely stops being afraid of it.
The Losers Club didn’t survive because they were braver than everyone else. They survived because they faced their fears together, and faced them honestly.
You ask the questions others avoid. You look directly at what frightens you rather than turning away.
That directness — the refusal to let fear fester in the dark — is Pennywise’s worst nightmare.
It chose the wrong target when it chose you. You are exactly the kind of person whose fear tastes like nothing at all.
Chicago · Child’s Play
Chucky
Chucky’s greatest advantage is that nobody takes him seriously until it’s already too late. He exploits the gap between how something looks and what it actually is.
You don’t have that gap. You take threats seriously regardless of how they present — and you never make the mistake of underestimating something because of its size or appearance.
Chucky relies on surprise, on the delay between recognition and response. You close that delay faster than almost anyone.
Your instinct to treat every unfamiliar thing with appropriate scepticism — rather than dismissing it because it seems absurd — is the exact quality that keeps you breathing.
Against Chucky, not laughing is already winning. You are very good at not laughing.
The dramatic nature of that scene may distract viewers from the true horror that comes in the very next scene. The two are at Bear’s house having sex, and while Nikki moans with pleasure, the camera shows that her expression is one of detachment, looking completely emotionless despite the enthusiasm in her voice. This is the first in a series of bedroom-based terrors in the movie, but it reveals a lot about the nature of Bear’s wish.
‘Obsession’ Paints a Chilling Portrait of Control
Image via Focus Features
Filmed brilliantly by Barker, the moment marks a turning point in the story and leaves the viewer in no doubt as to what Nikki’s agency is in the situation. She is delivering the feedback that Bear requires, not out of passion, but through compulsion, as the One Wish Willow leaves her in no position to refuse. While Bear might’ve thought his wish would have inspired organic feelings in the object of his affection, this shot shows that Nikki is under the control of both the Willow’s magic and Bear’s wish.
It’s a clever twist on the “bunny boiler” archetype of an obsessed woman chasing a reluctant man, seen in thrillers such as Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction. Here, Nikki’s deranged behavior is the result of another’s desire, made without her consent and manifested in a way that takes this “love” to a deadly extreme. Amid the violence and bloodshed of the movie, an unsettling undercurrent runs through it, where viewers are reminded that this woman is acting against her will, controlled by who they initially believed to be the leading man.
The Most Horrifying Moment in ‘Obsession’ Confirms Bear Is the Villain
Just as Obsession flips the narrative on the psychotic female antagonist, so, too, does it serve as an unmasking of the “nice guy” archetype. Bear is acting under his own selfish motivations, choosing to force someone who doesn’t love him to be infatuated. The wish itself is problematic under close consideration, but this blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bedroom scene confirms that Bear is the bad guy of his own story.
Even though he sees Nikki behave in a way that is out of character, giving him an inkling that she is being coerced to feel the way she does, he continues to have sex with her. It’s a nightmarish scenario that speaks to issues of consent on a deeper level, but even on the surface, it shows that Bear is happy to continue with the facade. It’s also the secret ingredient in Barker’s script. Although terrible things happen to Bear as a result of making his wish, there are always reminders that he is far from innocent.
