Scary, but a few of the closing scenes deserved another pass
Obsession is a horror film written, directed and edited by Curry Barker, in his feature debut after a string of horror shorts that became popular online. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and reached Italian cinemas on 14 May 2026, and it stars Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette: love left unsaid, a wish made at the wrong time and whatever comes of it.
The main character has not been very lucky lately: his cat, dead after accidentally swallowing oxycodone, has turned his life into a tragedy and taken away the only affection he had. Do not worry: the cat, or rather its body, will show up again in the worst possible way, against him.
Bear cannot stand the rejections and the excuses of his would-be girlfriend any longer, so he decides to do whatever it takes: buy the One Wish Willow and make his deepest wish. What begins as an ordinary love will soon show him that something has gone wrong.
About this film I can only praise the sound department: absolutely unforgettable. Every scene is carried by a hidden, cryptic musical rhythm, and none of those choices are random. The wish-granting object, the Willow itself, becomes the source of a deep and disturbing puzzle, a knot that is hard to untangle.
The setting is fairly confined: a small town lost in the American heartland, with a police force that is nowhere to be seen. There are, however, a few scenes that break the horror grip of the film, especially towards the end.
In my opinion the One Wish Willow should have worked for Bear alone (yes, I am thinking of the scene with the billion dollars Ian wins), so as to feed the paranoia of an artificial love and to make the viewer doubt what that object is good for at all. We know very well that paranoia is the fire that keeps horror cinema alive.
A few slips aside, Obsession is a horror film that manages to be frightening, with excellent and very independent music, and one that somehow managed to entertain me.