Film Review: OBSESSION (2025): A Bloody Movie Loaded with Gore That Serves as the Year’s Most Frustrating Film Thus Far

Obsession Review

Obsession (2025) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Curry Barker and starring Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richter, Haley Fitzgerald, Darin Toonder, Anthony Pavone, Justice, Anthony Casabianca, Chloe Breen and Malcolm Kelner.

Filmmaker Curry Barker’s new blood saturated drama, Obsession, is essentially a one-trick pony. It showcases a high-concept plot that it cannot properly resolve, making the results frustrating beyond a reasonable doubt. It’s not that there wasn’t potential in the story employed in this horror picture but the fact that it all ends with a resounding thud makes it a major disappointment.

Michael Johnston plays a loser named Bear who utilizes a “one wish willow” to make the girl of his dreams, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), love him. This one wish willow can make any dream come true, apparently. It’s sold in a novelty store and can yield a billion dollars in cash if a person wishes upon it for that.

Obsession is not without interesting characters or ideas. It’s just they fall victim to the logistics of a plot that would have failed as a Twilight Zone episode, let alone succeed as a full-length feature film. Everything rests on the movie’s ending and without a satisfying conclusion, the film ends up being nothing more than a shaggy dog story about unrequited love and, to a lesser degree, the destroying nature of misogamy.

Inde Navarrette is forced to act pathetic as she claims to love Bear thanks to the powers that be which drive her to love him against her will. Navarrette has won much acclaim from some outlets for her work in this film, but there’s no legitimacy in most of the praise. She overacts and under acts on command with tepid results all around. She has a lot of charisma, but it all gets lost in the violence and the mind-numbing shuffle that is Obsession.

Johnston fares worse as a guy who desires so much passion in his life and realizes that when he receives what he wishes for, it becomes a living nightmare for him and those around him. What good is love if it’s not genuine? Barker’s film explores that theme to the max. Johnson can’t carry the weight of the movie on his shoulders, though. He’s left to also overact to the point that his unlikable character becomes someone that one wishes would just go away.

As a shaggy dog story if there ever was one, there may be some merit in the lessons that are taught while watching Obsession. Be careful what you wish for, as the saying typically goes. However, Barker’s film is brutal beyond repair. There is a scene where a poor young girl’s face is repeatedly smashed against a car dashboard which pushes the envelope of what type of violence should be acceptable in a didactic horror movie these days.

Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless deliver nice supporting performances in Obsession. They play confidante characters named Ian and Sarah who are intriguing and likable until the movie decides they shouldn’t be respected anymore and, thus, they are killed off to advance the storyline. Blink and you’ll miss Andy Richter in his glorified, but pointless, cameo within the picture.

Movies like Obsession have existed for years. Wishmaster from 1997 had an evil genie at its helm and there have been other movies where things spiral out of control the way they do in Obsession. Barker’s film tries too hard. It never probes its premise in a way that could help it avoid unnecessary brutality. It’s concerned with shock value above all else.

Who wants to watch a film where the two main characters are nothing short of frustrating? If Inde Navarrette played the role in a realistic way, it could have worked. Everything is so exaggerated in Obsession that it’s more like a live-action cartoon than anything else. One could truly hate this movie’s ending because it’s so much of a cop-out. It sells the viewer short with a last-minute twist that could have arrived from a deus ex machina in ancient times to close out a tragedy.

All the actors in the film try to make Obsession interesting, but the plot is devastatingly hollow at its core. It only scratches the surface of the deep subjects that it tries to explore. All the things the movie wanted to say about obsession get glossed over in favor of a bloodbath that’s hard to watch on-screen. What the movie could have had in originality, it replaces with a crass, overt attempt to fool the movie-going public into thinking they’re watching something profound. Had the movie had an ending that could salvage it and make the gore have a genuine purpose, we may have had something. Obsession is all gore with no head or heart employed to tell its shallow tale. It’s basically a total misfire from opening to close.

Rating: 4/10

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