It’s been said that horror and comedy are two sides of the same coin so it should come as no surprise that a sketch-show performer might shift into crafting cinematic terror. Similar to Jordan Peele before him, writer and director Curry Barker was one half of a comic duo before his film debut, 2024’s found-footage piece Milk & Serial. His latest feature is Obsession, a supernatural chiller that follows twenty-something ‘Bear’ (Michael Johnston) who has a longstanding crush on his music store colleague Nikki (Inde Navarrette). Eager to cheer her up after she loses a necklace, he buys her a ‘One-Wish Willow’, a novelty trinket that claims to grant one wish once broken. After dropping her off one night and fumbling the opportunity to express his true feelings, he himself snaps the gift in half out of frustration, wishing that she would “love him more than anyone else in the world”. Nikki then experiences a sudden change of heart, and becomes obsessively infatuated with her admirer.

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