Possession movies may be the most difficult horror subgenre to innovate. The possession of the body by an evil or demonic spirit is obviously a pervasive fear, because movies keep getting made about it. Yet it’s also one of those subgenres that’s so thoroughly defined by a single classic — 1973’s The Exorcist — that its visual and thematic language have been largely codified to match that film. The best you can hope for in a new possession movie is a change of venue (like The Exorcism of Emily Rose adding in courtroom drama) or a format shift (like The Last Exorcism, a found-footage version, or, for that matter, the stealth possession narrative of Paranormal Activity). Most of the time, what you get is an Exorcist ripoff.
Maybe the secret is not setting out to make a possession movie at all, or at least not advertising it as such. Obsession, the assured and freaky debut feature from writer-director Curry Barker, is nominally a monkey’s-paw wish-gone-wrong story — the kind of script that might have been configured for an episode of The Twilight Zone or Tales from the Crypt — but it finds additional, chilling resonance depicting a new, non-demomic form of possession.
Barker starts from a lower-key horror domain: The post-graduation social drift, depicted here in non-widescreen frame and shadowy environments that can easily shift from cozy to lonely. Bear (Michael Johnston) works at a music store (nothing as social as records; just instruments), alongside his buddies Ian (Barker’s internet sketch comedy partner Cooper Tomlinson), Nikki (Inde Navarrette), and Sarah (Megan Lawless). Bear has been nursing a crush on Nikki since high school, but he lacks the courage to act upon his feelings. Some of it is natural timidity; some of it is a deep-down understanding that Nikki may not see him the same way. On some level, it’s safer to pine from the friend zone.
Still, as with any hopeless crush, he can’t help but attempt to apply some hope anyway. At one point, searching for a gift for Nikki, Bear buys a kitschy novelty item: a “One-Wish Willow” that will supposedly grant a wish when broken in two. After chickening out on giving it to her, Bear uses the toy on himself, wishing that Nikki would love him more than anyone. To his surprise and initial delight, the wish comes true. Suddenly, Nikki only has eyes for him. In short order, they begin to date, they have sex, and they move in together, much to the puzzlement of their friends.
This turn positions Obsession as a kind of supernatural stalker movie. In true monkey’s-paw fashion, the undying affection Bear sought from Nikki becomes frightening, as she dotes and fixates on him to an unhealthy degree, the details of which are best left for the audience to discover. In normal (if misogyny-tinted) terms, Nikki’s attachment could be described as clingy. Barker eventually makes it disturbingly clear, however, that the body throwing herself into supposed bliss with Bear isn’t really controlled by Nikki at all. Occasionally, her real consciousness emerges for seconds at a time, disoriented or pleading for help. She’s trapped somewhere deeper inside a vessel that some other force is using to grant Bear’s wish.
Part of what makes Obsession so merciless is that, unlike demonic possessions, the presence within Nikki isn’t trying to make a show out of its own evil, even though many of its actions are truly horrifying and grotesque. (One particular scene of gore nearly got the movie slapped with an NC-17 rating.) Instead, it’s Bear’s willingness to disregard Nikki’s autonomy that feels truly evil. In addition to the twisted sense of comeuppance in that dynamic, there’s something scary about an otherworldly presence that doesn’t issue any overt, Exorcist-style blasphemies and threats. It’s a more secular menace for a less religious era, with Bear’s selfishness manifesting as its own form of demon.
The nature of Nikki’s condition also ups the ante on the performance of possession. Playing the demonically possessed so often makes physical demands of an actor without necessarily offering much character-based reward (see: Lee Cronin’s The Mummy). Navarrette gets plenty of time to believably and charmingly establish who Nikki is before the wish takes her true self away. Once that happens, she does bravura work as this imitation version, regularly flying off the handle with panicked eagerness or cackling mania, creating an unusual combination of fear and pity — a true movie monster crossing possession with a Bride of Frankenstein figure. To the couple’s friends, Nikki’s behavior presents as some kind of mental health crisis; they may not understand that Bear has a magical wish on his side, but they’re suspicious of his increasingly unstable-looking relationship with a woman they could have sworn wasn’t interested in him a few weeks ago.
Navarrette’s terrific performance does lead to one unusual weak spot. In most possession movies, the possessed character is not especially interesting; it’s the doubts, insecurities, and challenges of those grappling with the possession that drive the story. To a degree, that’s true here, too: Barker neither lets prototypical “nice guy” Bear off easy nor fully demonizes him as a controlling, entitled monster. That nuance, however, doesn’t actually translate to depth. For a considerable stretch of the movie, Bear does the same basic thing: desperately hoping he can salvage some version of Nikki despite mounting evidence to the contrary. This leads to some darkly funny moments, like Bear returning to the store where he bought the wishing toy, or calling a supremely unhelpful customer service line. But there’s barely a moment, before or after the possession, where Bear is actually more compelling than his object of desire.
Then again, Nikki’s struggle may be more effectively viewed in metaphorical (and sometimes actual) shadows, maintaining some skin-crawling ambiguity about where exactly her true self has gone and whether it can fully return. That’s the horror of a possession movie, and something Obsession captures even without the help of literal demons. Barker’s unnerving twist is to suggest that, while the process might remain mysterious, the thievery itself could still be someone’s conscious wish.
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