TIFF 2025: ‘Obsession’ Review
The comedy-to-horror pipeline is proving to be a surefire way for creative horror to find a solid footing in an oversaturated market. Horror has always been one of the most fascinating genres to watch evolve. However, the recent surge in horror movies that play themselves straight while still being humorous has seen an uptick in both quality and quantity. It’s the commitment to making something terrifying while being aware of the comedic value that has had movies like Weapons, Barbarian, Nope, The Monkey, and Together, all films that can turn nervous chuckles into a full-blown scream or a gut-busting laugh. While Curry Barker has been circling that equilibrium with short films and YouTube videos for a few years now, his feature debut, Obsession, wrings every ounce of tension and creativity out of its deceptively simple premise. Through confident direction, a chaotic and unnerving lead performance from Inde Navarrette, and an ingenious skewering of relationship dynamics, Barker immediately establishes himself as a fresh and exciting voice within horror.
Obsession is an enticing evolution of the observational humour found in Barker and frequent collaborator Cooper Tomlinson’s ‘That’s a Bad Idea’ YouTube videos. Much of Barker and Tomlinson’s work hinges on minor inconveniences or accepted truths that can spiral out of control once confronted. There’s a healthy dose of cringe comedy in there, but a lot of it is simply taking a well-worn situation to its extreme. That’s essentially what Barker’s screenplay does with Obsession. When Bear (Michael Johnston) can no longer deal with his unrequited love for his childhood friend, Nikki (Navarrette), and feels like time is running out on confessing it to her, he makes one last-ditch effort after discovering a One Wish Willow—a novelty stick that, when broken, will allegedly grant the user one wish. After wishing for Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world, Bear quickly realizes that his love may have crossed a line.
The most clever element of Obsession is its understanding that the kind of wish Bear has made is not only extreme, but also ignores any consent from Nikki. It’s the kind of action that a more despicable protagonist in a horror film would exact upon someone, but because it’s someone who is just incapable of taking the leap, it reflects how men still can’t see their abuses of power. Moments where Bear could easily express his feelings underscore this fragility that men often avoid confronting. Johnston’s performance colours Bear as this unlucky, unfortunate guy who gets in way over his head, but it’s the actions that paint him more as the unlikable person that he is. Perhaps not as outwardly hateable as his best friend Ian (Tomlinson) is, Bear earns the disdain in a much subtler way.
I spent most of Obsession on the edge of my seat, anxiously biting my nails, and the aforementioned nervous laughter frequently made me look like a wreck. It’s the tonal control that Barker shows throughout that makes Obsession as intense as it is. Pulling from a lexicon of tried-and-true horror scares, Barker isn’t showing anything new—he’s just doing it through a different lens. That’s the brilliance, as the chills come from imagining your significant other doing all the things you’ve seen monsters, ghosts, and demons do in the dark. That’s all made more uncomfortable by who is responsible for it. It’s a great way to have your cake and eat it too, which Barker’s screenplay does many times in a seemingly effortless fashion. The severity of the situation continues to escalate, but it’s the manic attempts to de-escalate that provide increasingly hilarious moments. One particular scene later on had me in stitches, while the gut punch began nestling its way inside between laughs.
It’s Navarrette’s performance that provides the most dizzying tonal shifts, and yet seems entirely attuned to Barker’s wavelength. Chaotic is one way to describe her portrayal of Nikki, but there’s a control that makes every sudden gesture and creepy movement more unnerving than disorderly. Getting to spend a bit of time with her character before Bear’s wish helps the audience keep looking for the humanity inside the insanity, and Navarrette does a fantastic job swivelling from one extreme to another while feeling like a human being torn apart both inside and out. Obsession is a film about control that could have devolved into broad jump scares, turning Nikki into more of a performance than a human being. It’s the kind of horror performance that textures a film in a way that a screenplay sometimes can’t. That Navarrette is working in tandem with Barker’s tonal exercise elevates the material while keeping it fully locked into its nightmarish descent.
Obsession could have easily felt slight—both in its premise and its execution. Subtle worldbuilding helps make the film’s central conceit feel potentially expansive, but it wisely keeps its focus narrowed to Bear’s personal plight. Walking the tightrope as he does, Barker demonstrates a confidence in his vision that only years of making movies, regardless of their genre, can bring about. His particular brand of awkward encounters, amped up to eleven, is reminiscent of what Tim Robinson has been doing in the comedy space, and there are times when Obsession feels like the more frightening sibling to Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship. That both feature unlikable, lonely male protagonists in situations of their own making only accentuates a probing interrogation of how easily men can still inflict damage even when they feel supposedly helpless.
The 50th Toronto International Film Festival took place from September 4th to 14th. Obsession celebrated its World premiere on September 5th, as part of TIFF’s Midnight Madness program. The full list of films selected for the festival can be found here.
