Obsession: An All-Time Great, or a Giant Among Mediocrity?

Curry Barker truly blew the doors off the horror industry when he went from writing and performing YouTube comedy sketches to becoming one of the most talked-about horror directors of the last several years — and, remarkably, much of that reputation has been built on one breakout feature.

And Barker is an absolutely excellent writer.

Obsession is undeniably a great horror movie. The story is dark, original, and the direction is exceptional, especially for a filmmaker whose previous feature work included the ultra-low-budget Milk & Serial — which, for the record, is also very good.

Then there is Inde Navarrette.

Her performance is a master class in the basics and nuances of horror acting. She is wildly creepy without constantly announcing that she is trying to be creepy. Her facial expressions, her slightly unusual movements, the way she carries herself — all of it contributes to a character who feels genuinely unsettling.

The awards attention surrounding her performance is warranted.

There have been several tremendous performances this year, but maybe Navarrette can collect a little overdue justice for horror actresses everywhere. Toni Collette being ignored for Hereditary remains, in my opinion, one of the great modern awards snubs. Collette gave one of the best acting performances in horror history — and one of the best performances in cinema, period.

Maybe it would feel a little like Paul Newman finally winning for The Color of Money: not literally compensation for somebody else, but recognition arriving after audiences have watched performances of that caliber go ignored for far too long.

With all of that being said — and without sounding discouraging toward what is genuinely an excellent movie — horror fans need to take one small step back and ask ourselves a question.

How Great Is Obsession, Really?

Michael Johnston is good as Bear, although even describing Bear as either a protagonist or antagonist becomes complicated.

But trying to justify Johnston for any kind of Oscar nomination feels pretty ridiculous to me.

He is clearly talented. Give the kid plenty of jobs. He deserves them.

But this particular performance did not strike me as awards-caliber.

In fact, Bear’s whiny, fragile, almost dainty demeanor occasionally hurt the movie for me. There were several points where I kept imagining what the scenes might have looked like with a more openly angry, verbally aggressive Bear.

Nikki becomes increasingly unstable, yet Bear often seems to concede ground rather than truly push back against her.

A Bear who occasionally exploded back could have created some wildly intense confrontations.

That does not mean Johnston was bad.

He wasn’t.

It simply means there is a difference between a talented actor giving a good performance and a performance that belongs among the best of the year.

Is Obsession an All-Time Horror Great?

For me, it just misses the mark.

The creep factor is certainly there. The pacing is excellent. The runtime is almost perfect because the movie never leaves you feeling like you just survived a three-hour slog.

It starts quickly.

It keeps moving.

And once the central nightmare begins, Barker rarely takes his foot off the gas.

But when we start talking about the true modern horror masterpieces, the comparison becomes difficult.

Think about The Ring.

Naomi Watts moving through desolate locations. The creepy kid. The videotape. The mystery surrounding everything.

That movie had a darkness to it that extended beyond individual scares. You felt like the characters were uncovering something they should never have touched.

The story itself was part of the horror.

Then there is something entirely different, and probably even more frightening:

Hereditary.

That film tells a story about grief becoming so overwhelming that the supernatural almost feels like the final stage of a family already collapsing.

And Toni Collette’s performance, as mentioned earlier, is one of the greatest you will ever see.

Period.

Not merely in horror.

There is one particular sequence in Hereditary that remains among the most horrifying scenes in modern cinema, and almost none of what makes it horrifying has anything to do with spirits, demons or monsters.

It is simply human devastation.

Then there is The Conjuring, which is just a better pure scare machine. The atmosphere, the pacing, the set pieces, and the way it builds dread are all stronger. It knows how to take a familiar haunted-house framework and make it feel fresh, polished, and genuinely frightening.

And then, within a relatively short stretch, horror audiences also got Sinister and Insidious.

Both films are loaded with disturbing imagery, mystery, and moments capable of genuinely making you shudder.

If anything, I sometimes wonder whether those movies slightly tripped over each other culturally because they arrived so close together.

Each built creepy mythology.

Each had memorable imagery.

Each understood that the unknown is often far more frightening than whatever eventually gets explained.

And that is where Obsession falls slightly short for me.

Those movies leave something behind.

You finish watching them and some piece of them follows you home.

Obsession does not quite have that same lingering effect.

But Do Not Mistake This for an Attack on the Movie

Because it absolutely is not.

I believe The Ring, Hereditary, and The Conjuring are all clearly better horror movies than Obsession. I would put Sinister and Insidious in that broader modern conversation too.

But Obsession might not be an all-time great simply because the bar for that distinction should be extremely high.

This movie is still God-damn close.

And if you have avoided watching it because you assumed the praise was nothing but hype, you are mistaken.

See it.

Then probably see it again.

Just do not walk in expecting the intricate mystery of The Ring, the suffocating psychological nightmare of Hereditary, or the precision scare-craft of The Conjuring.

Obsession operates differently.

It is fast.

It is mean.

It is uncomfortable.

And it gets going almost immediately.

There is very little wasted motion.

In an era where horror has become so prevalent that genuinely good movies are released constantly, standing out has become harder than ever.

And Obsession still managed to stand out.

That matters.

So no — I do not believe Obsession belongs among the unquestioned all-time horror masterpieces.

Not yet.

But it is absolutely one of the great horror films of its time.

And in the current horror landscape, that may be an even bigger compliment than it sounds.

The Monitor has spoken.

Embrace the darkness. Just never get caught wandering The Dark Hall alone.
— The Monitor