I don’t think this is a very controversial statement, but we are absolutely living in the golden age of horror movies. We exist in a time where a grimy, bluesy vampire movie like “Sinners” can become the most Oscar-nominated film in history and a bonkers, singular vision like “Weapons” can nab Amy Madigan her first Best Supporting Actress at 75 years old. With the recent release of Curry Barker’s horror masterpiece, “Obsession,” fans are experiencing a genre renaissance unlike anything we’ve seen since the dawn of modern horror in the early ’80s.
Contemporary filmmakers are treating horror for what it really is: a limitless playground for developing ideas built around what scares us about being alive. From “Hereditary’s” disturbing deconstruction of the limitations of grief to the trans metaphor of “I Saw the TV Glow” to the treatment of demonic possession as a drug addiction in “Talk to Me,” there isn’t a single concept that can’t be explored through a scary lens.
First, I would love to put a moratorium on the term “elevated horror.” While all horror movies are most certainly not created equal, acting like “The Witch” elevates the genre because it treats its subject more “seriously” than something like “The Toxic Avenger” completely misses the point. It’s a label invented by people who are secretly ashamed of loving genre films—acting as a security blanket for cinephiles who need to pretend a movie is a grief metaphor just to justify enjoying a good scare. Horror didn’t suddenly become respectable because A24 applied a muted color palette to it.
Still, when a film like “Obsession” comes along, it’s easy to see why people reach for that vocabulary. It takes a trope-heavy subgenre—the supernatural wish gone wrong—and updates it into a devastatingly sharp relationship allegory. Yet, even with all of its intellectual bona fides, the film remains a rollercoaster of disturbing moments, belly laughs and pulse-pounding intensity. It goes a long way toward proving horror doesn’t need to be glacially paced and dour to be important.
The setup of “Obsession” is deceptively simple. We follow Bear (played with pitch-perfect, beta-male awkwardness by Michael Johnston), a music shop employee hopelessly stuck in the friend zone with his co-worker and best friend, Nikki (a truly, profoundly astonishing Inde Navarrette). Desperate to change their dynamic, Bear buys a cheap novelty trinket called a “One Wish Willow” from a local hippie shop. In a moment of frustration, he snaps it and wishes that Nikki would love him more than anyone else in the world.
He gets exactly what he asked for and it’s far more disturbing than the basic “Monkey’s Paw” setup suggests. Nikki immediately becomes obsessed with Bear, turning unhinged and unable to be apart from him for even just a few moments. Working as a pointed critique of toxic co-dependency and the hidden lie of the “nice guy” trope, “Obsession” has a ton to say about modern relationships and hook-up culture. It left such a layer of grime on me that when the film ended, I felt genuinely uncomfortable for an hour after the credits rolled.
What positions “Obsession” at the absolute peak of contemporary genre filmmaking is its shifting perspective on who the real monster is. Barker’s script is far too smart to leave it at a simple “crazy girlfriend” cliche. As Nikki’s behavior spirals into terrifying physical and psychological territory, the camera turns its gaze back onto Bear himself. We watch a man trapped in a prison he constructed, yet he remains deeply complicit. Even as Nikki’s mind and body visibly curdle under the weight of the spell, Bear’s entitlement and need for validation keep him from breaking it. That quiet complicity becomes just as chilling as Nikki’s manic “love.”
The film works beautifully thematically, but it functions even better as a jaw-dropping, wildly unpredictable body horror. Inde Navarrette delivers a powerhouse performance that deserves same accolades and flowers showered upon Toni Collette in “Hereditary.” I’m not exaggerating when I say this is one of the most transcendent horror movie performances in history and Navarrette deserves to be on the Mount Rushmore of Horror Heroines alongside Collette, Isabelle Adjani in “Possession” and Florence Pugh in “Midsommar.” She shifts effortlessly from a facsimile of the perfect millennial girlfriend to a twitching, bone-grinding entity, hungrily watching Bear sleep from the shadows. This is an instantly, unequivocally iconic performance and I will not be taking questions at this time.
Barker, who also edited the film, proves he has an immaculate eye for slow-burn dread. He relies heavily on practical effects and deeply unsettling lighting to make Nikki look entirely inhuman without detaching her from reality. Aside from a few slightly weird story beats, Curry Barker, at 26, has made a near-perfect film and inspired me to finish writing the horror script gathering cobwebs in my head. I have a feeling there is no upper limit to what Barker can do.
In a year already packed with great genre offerings like the underrated “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple,” the spooky throwback “Hokum,” the quietly disturbing “Undertone,” the gooey maximalism of “The Mummy” and “They Will Kill You,” and the gleefully unhinged “Ready or Not 2” and “Send Help,” we still have so much to look forward to. Coming up we have the A24 genre-bender “Backrooms,” the absurdest “Buddy,” a new franchise entry with “Evil Dead Burn,” the queer nightmare, “Leviticus,” the Jessica Chastain-led “Other Mommy,” Zach Creggar’s follow-up to “Weapons,” a “Resident Evil” reboot, Robert Eggars’ new one, “Werwulf,” the incredibly cast “Sender,” the epic-looking “The End of Oak Street” and so many more.
It’s the golden age of horror. I’m calling it now. One thing is for sure: when we look back at this era and explore the movies that pushed the genre forward and changed the game, “Obsession” will be at the top of the list. I don’t mean to overhype it, so just make a wish you never read this and head straight to the theater. Nikki is waiting for you.
“Obsession”
Dir. Curry Barker
Grade: A-
Now Playing at Regal Old Mill, Madras Cinema 5
This article appears in the Source May 21, 2026.
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