I went into Obsession (2026) expecting a decent psychological horror, but I honestly did not expect it to get under my skin the way it did. This is one of those horror films that doesn’t rely on constant jump scares or nonstop gore to work. Instead, it builds its horror out of discomfort, control, obsession, and the terrifying idea of love being forced instead of freely given. And that’s exactly why it works so well.
At its core, Obsession has a very simple setup. Bear is a lonely, awkward guy who has feelings for Nikki, a girl he’s been close to for years. Instead of actually dealing with those feelings like a normal person, he uses a supernatural object called the One Wish Willow to wish that Nikki would love him. Obviously, because this is a horror movie and not a romance, that decision destroys everything. What starts as wish fulfillment quickly turns into something disturbing, tragic, and deeply uncomfortable to watch.
What I liked
The first thing I have to give this film credit for is the fact that it takes a very familiar “be careful what you wish for” premise and turns it into something that feels genuinely nasty and fresh. On paper, the story sounds simple, maybe even too simple, but the execution is what makes it work. This is not just a cursed object horror film. It’s really a horror film about control, entitlement, loneliness, and the horror of taking away someone’s agency in the name of love.
That’s what makes Obsession so effective. The real horror isn’t just that Nikki becomes obsessive. It’s that the entire situation is built on a violation from the very beginning. Bear doesn’t “win the girl.” He creates a nightmare by forcing love where love doesn’t exist. The film understands how disturbing that is, and it leans into it hard. It doesn’t treat his wish like a cute romantic fantasy gone wrong, it treats it like the selfish, ugly act that it is. I appreciated that a lot, because the movie would’ve been much weaker if it tried to soften Bear or excuse him too much.
I also thought Inde Navarrette absolutely carried this film. She’s the reason the movie works as well as it does. Her performance as Nikki is easily the best thing in the film for me, because she somehow manages to be tragic, creepy, unhinged, and deeply unsettling all at once. There’s something so wrong about the way Nikki behaves after the wish takes effect, and Navarrette plays it in a way that feels almost inhuman without ever becoming cartoonish. She doesn’t just act like a jealous girlfriend or a typical horror villain, she feels like someone whose mind and body have been hijacked by obsession and then twisted into something unnatural. It’s one of those performances where even when she’s being “sweet,” you still feel uncomfortable because you know something is horribly off.
Michael Johnston is also very good as Bear, mostly because he doesn’t play him as some obvious monster. He plays him as weak, insecure, passive, and selfish in a way that feels more realistic and honestly more disturbing. Bear isn’t a slasher villain. He’s worse in a way, because he’s believable. He’s the kind of person who wants something so badly that he convinces himself he deserves it, and then acts shocked when reality punishes him for it. That made him a really frustrating character, but I think he’s supposed to be. He’s not meant to be lovable. He’s meant to be pathetic, selfish, and morally compromised, and the film is stronger because it doesn’t pretend otherwise.
Why the movie works as horror
What I liked most about Obsession is that it understands that psychological horror works best when it makes you feel trapped in someone else’s bad decision. That’s exactly what this film does. Once Bear makes that wish, the whole movie becomes this slow, miserable spiral where every scene feels more wrong than the last. It’s not horror built around “what’s the monster going to do next?” so much as “how much worse is this situation going to become?” And the answer is: a lot worse.
The film also does a really good job with tone. It’s dark, disturbing, and uncomfortable, but it also has this weird edge of black comedy running through it, because the situation becomes so extreme and so awful that sometimes the discomfort loops into nervous laughter. Not because it’s silly, but because the film knows how absurd and horrifying the premise really is. That balance is hard to pull off, but I think Obsession mostly gets it right.
Visually, it’s also stronger than I expected. It doesn’t feel like some cheap throwaway horror movie. The cinematography, the lighting, and the way it frames Nikki as she becomes more and more unsettling all help create this suffocating atmosphere. It doesn’t need a huge budget to work because it knows exactly what kind of horror it wants to be. It’s intimate, ugly, and emotionally claustrophobic.
What didn’t fully work for me
That said, I don’t think Obsession is flawless.
My biggest issue is that while the movie is thematically stronger than it is narratively, I don’t think it always goes as deep as it could have. The film clearly wants to be about obsession, entitlement, autonomy, control, and the ugliness of forcing affection, and it absolutely gets those ideas across. But I also think there are moments where it gestures toward deeper emotional complexity without fully earning it. Sometimes it feels like it’s brushing up against something really sharp and interesting, then pulling back just before it cuts deep enough.
I also think the movie depends heavily on how much you buy into Bear as a character. If you don’t believe his emotional logic, or if you find him too frustrating to follow, parts of the film might lose some power. For me, that mostly worked because I saw him as intentionally pathetic rather than poorly written, but I can absolutely understand why some people might find him hard to connect with.
There were also moments where the escalation felt slightly uneven. Not bad, but uneven. The film is very good at building discomfort, but once things get more extreme, it occasionally leans into shock in a way that felt a little more blunt than the earlier tension. I didn’t hate that, but I do think the first half is more controlled than some of the later material.
My thoughts on the ending
I actually liked the ending, mostly because it refuses to give the audience an easy emotional release. This isn’t the kind of film that wraps things up neatly and lets everyone off the hook. The ending feels bleak, ugly, and completely in line with the rest of the story. It reinforces the idea that the damage done here can’t just be undone because someone finally realizes they made a selfish decision. Bear doesn’t get to hit rewind. Nikki doesn’t get her dignity or agency back just because he regrets what he did. That’s what makes the ending work for me, it understands that the horror of the film isn’t just the supernatural wish itself, but the fact that the wish exposed something rotten in Bear from the beginning.
What kind of horror this actually is
I’d call Obsession a psychological horror with supernatural elements, but honestly it plays more like relationship horror than anything else. Yes, there’s a cursed object and a supernatural trigger, but the film’s real interest is in what happens when desire turns into possession and affection turns into control.
So if you’re expecting:
- a fast-paced supernatural horror with constant jump scares,
- a monster movie,
- or a straightforward possession film,
this probably isn’t that.
But if you like horror that’s more about:
- obsession
- manipulation
- toxic relationships
- psychological discomfort
- slow escalation into something ugly and tragic
then Obsession absolutely delivers.
My final opinion
Overall, I think Obsession is one of the best horror films of 2026 so far, not because it reinvents the genre, but because it takes a familiar idea and executes it with far more intelligence, cruelty, and emotional nastiness than I expected. It’s disturbing without feeling cheap, psychologically ugly without becoming pretentious, and anchored by a genuinely fantastic performance from Inde Navarrette that makes the whole thing hit harder.
It’s not perfect. I do think some of its themes are stronger than its actual character work, and there are places where it could have gone even deeper emotionally. But even with those flaws, I thought it was dark, effective, uncomfortable, and memorable — and honestly, that’s more than I can say for most horror releases.
My rating: 8.5/10
Creepy, disturbing, and genuinely unsettling. A sharp psychological horror about obsession, control, and the horror of getting exactly what you asked for.
If you have a different opinion, feel free to leave a comment, I’d love to hear your take.
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