Low-budget horror movies do have a habit of popping out of nowhere and taking the box office by storm, don’t they? Blair Witch Project is an obvious example, but let’s not forget Halloween or Evil Dead. Now, continuing that tradition comes Curry Baker’s cinematic debut with Obsession.
I think the reason some of these films hit so hard out of the blue is simply by tapping into one crucial part of the zeitgeist—be it social distrust of old, new technology, or here, quite simply how toxic relationships and, well, obsessions can get out of hand. As such we have Michael Johnston as a socially awkward young dude pining for co-worker and friend Nikki (Inde Navarrette), but can never quite sum up the courage to tell her directly how he feels. Eventually he stumbles on a seeming knick-knack from a New Age store that supposedly grants wishes—and decides to try it out on getting her to love him.
And from there…you might remember how in a lot of genie stories there’s a restriction on free will or falling in love? Well, here the idea seems to be what if it tried to get around that anyway—and, well, the results don’t start to go pretty…
Navarrette ends up being the one to steal the show here—there’s a talent to finding just that ever so perfect awkward expression, as oxymoronic as that sounds, and just holding it. There’s also something to be said by finding something that seems friendly, but just goes on long enough to feel creepy as opposed to just funny. Here, what starts off seeming cute and eccentric spirals into something worse—with there being a fair bit of black comedy as she decides she really doesn’t care what Johnston’s friends (Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless) think.
And of course there’s several ways you can read it all—we do have Johnston starting off just a bit awkward and soon in over his head, but perpetuating what’s obviously a very unhealthy relationship seemingly simply because of how invested he put himself into this connection, and how for the most part he doesn’t seem to be willing to imagine anything else, as grisly as it gets. It’s something old as time and all too relevant now even in an age of phone connections. And, of course, speaking of the current age, with so much fakeness permeating society, with digital puppets of pixel and code that can just tell you anything you want like a creepy data-consuming sociopath…well, those are connections others have made already.
And, well, overall, despite the obviously tiny budget, it’s another example of working around that and selling things anyway with a solid cast that gives the script exactly what it needs! It’s not necessarily something with a lot of story twists and effects, but what it does, it does oh so creepily and sometimes hilariously well. Word of mouth seems to agree—I saw a late night screening that to my own surprise was pretty packed anyway!
So yeah, this seems to be another one joining the ranks of modern horror classics, give it a shot if that’s your thing…
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