A man purchases a novelty toy that grants wishes, wishes for a girl to love him, and turns their relationship into pure sinistry.
Careful what you wish for… on steroids.
Sensitivity, communication, love, emotional distance, isolation – every relationship is built and broken through these elements. And writer/director Cury Barker weaponises all of them in Obsession, crafting a horror film that projects something esoteric about human connection: we often do not truly know what we want from others because we barely understand what is missing within ourselves.
The film takes the classic “genie in a bottle”, or, in this case, a genie in a stick and twists it into something sinister. The fantasy sounds simple enough: someone appears capable of making another person behave exactly the way we wish. But relationships do not function like commands, and neither do emotions. Even if our desires were magically fulfilled, would they actually satisfy us? Or would they expose deeper voids we never understood in the first place?
That contradiction lies in Obsession. Bear, played brilliantly by Michael Johnston, gets his wish fulfilled in the worst possible way. What follows is not merely horror, but a psychological spiral exploring how fear, loneliness, insecurity, anxiety, and emotional repression distort both desire and identity. Barker turns internal chaos into cinematic terror, creating sequences that crawl under your skin rather than simply jump at you – although yes, there are moments that will absolutely make audiences jump out of their seats. That scene in particular, where… OK, no spoilers.
What makes the horror especially effective is how recognisable its emotional foundations are. Shyness, modesty, fear of rejection, and difficulty expressing emotions – qualities often romanticised in life – can become prisons for men, women, and non-binary people when communication collapses. Horror thrives in those emotional gaps, exploiting what happens when longing mutates into fixation and when silence allows fantasy to replace reality.
And then comes Inde Navarrette… Like Johnston, Cooper Tomlinson (Ian) and Megan Lawless (Sarah) are amazing. Hands down. Navarrette, though, is tasked with the heaviest burden. She is absolutely terrifying. Every moment she appears – foreground or background – you instinctively panic. Her performance radiates unpredictability in the same way Mia Goth dominated X (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/x-2022-horror/ and Pearl (2022): https://kaygazpro.com/pearl-2022-horror/. Chaotic, magnetic, creepy.
Alongside Undertone (2025): https://kaygazpro.com/undertone-2025/, Obsession stands as one of the most impactful horror films of 2026 so far. And, finally, after so long, a positive surprise from Blumhouse.
And if this is where horror cinema is heading this year? I genuinely cannot wait for Backrooms (2026).
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