Obsession

July 10 – 12

Fri July 10 – 3:30 & 7:00 pm
Sat July 11 – 7:00 pm
Sun July 12 – 1:30 & 7:00 pm – LAST SHOW

Rated 14A – 1hr 47min
Sci-Fi / Horror / Mystery / Thriller

Obsession is the year’s most terrifying horror film so far. Put your hands over your face and clamp your popcorn bucket between your knees – here be jump-scares. Dubbed “the Gen-Z Fatal Attraction” by its male star Michael Johnston, Obsession’s debut director Curry Barker has been equally open about his creepy, quirky chiller’s influences. And there are many. From Hitchcockian suspense thriller Hereditary to Elisabeth Moss’ The Invisible Man reboot by way of classics Misery and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, this is genre geekdom at its nerdiest. Oooh-eee!

Be careful what you wish for as Obsession takes its logline to gruesome glory in a slow-burn horror thriller that’s sure to be a genre hit. The premise is simple: a meek guy uses a supernatural device to win over his gorgeous bestie. The twisted killings that follow admittedly simmer to build up steam, but the carnage sticks the landing in measured scenes that always pay off. Curry Barker pulls auteur triple duty as writer, director, and editor with a creepy second feature that fulfills his brutal vision without compromise.

The film starts, as all good American teen movies do, in a grotty diner. Johnston’s Bear is professing his love to a waitress across a sticky plastic-topped table. It’s awkward. It’s intense. It’s not going well. But don’t worry, he’s just practicing. The waitress is only a friend – and Bear is rehearsing before he meets actual apple-of-his-eye Nikki at a bar later on. You’ll get used to this. Barker loves to pull the rug on his audience when they’ve just got comfortable.

Fast-forward to the evening, and Bear is driving Nikki (Inde Navarrette) home through their suburban, Stephen King-esque neighbourhood. Think dim streetlights, white picket fences and wooden mailboxes. The dweeby lad couldn’t summon enough courage to confess his affections… and fails again at the steps to Nikki’s porch. In a fit of adolescent pique he snatches up the One Wish Willow – a cheap, supposedly magical, stick-in-a-box recently bought from the local ‘new-age’ apothecary – and breaks it in half as instructed: “I wish Nikki loved me more than anyone else in the world,” he mutters rashly. Say goodbye to the friend zone, Bear. And hello to The Twilight Zone!

What makes Obsession so fun, and so disturbing, is how it takes typical aspects of dysfunctional romantic relationships to initially comic and then horrific extremes. The film provides further complexity by not making Bear a sympathetic victim but rather complicit by initially enjoying Nikki’s affections despite their artificial provenance. Until, of course, they get out of hand. Johnston displays an admirable willingness to make his character look pathetic at times rather than trying too hard to make him likeable.

Taking an icky conceit and twisting it to deviously crowd-pleasing ends, Obsession is dauntingly disturbing while also skillfully amusing and thrilling. We’re obsessed with Inde Navarrette in Obsession, a creatively grotesque — and at times darkly funny — horror film that cements Curry Barker as a filmmaker to watch.