I'm glad that Curry Barker belongs to that breed of content creator-turned-filmmakers who didn't fall prey to that detestable temptation of cramming their feature-length projects with loud music and miniature-length scenes to pander to those with the attention span of a moth: the ones that have been consuming way too many short (and loud) brainrot Instagram/TikTok reels that when they see anything with long takes or stillness, they immediately begin feeling restless and call the movie "overrated" and accuse the people who genuinely love it of being "shills."
There was one such person in the theatre I went to see "Obsession". This person and his buddies, which included a woman, couldn't constantly stop talking! It's the sort of behaviour that makes you want to punch them in the face, but you refrain from doing so because you don't want to ruin everyone else's experience.
So, no spoilers in this review. "Obsession" is a film that believes in quiet, still, calm moments and then ingeniously extracts horror-inducing scenarios out of them. It makes you feel completely at ease in the beginning, with its inviting ambience — warm amber lighting, soothing earthy colours — and then shows us that such places can also be a great source of distress in the hands of the right filmmaker.
Had it been someone else in place of Barker, they would've opted for something more gritty and dystopian-leaning. Barker does the opposite. He generates unsettling tension through stationary composition; creepy silhouettes, sudden gestures and movements; jarring sounds and varying voice modulations; lingering shots and, in one darkly comic scene, a "cute" smile that seems to go on forever.
Barker believes in the basics. He keeps everything minimal, right down to the casting. And the fact that "Obsession" features unfamiliar actors — unless you've been closely following everything they do — brings the necessary measure of unpredictability that really helps films like these. This is the kind of film that — again, no spoilers — makes you think in reverse after you're done with the film. You think about what comes after — how would someone explain this situation to the authorities when they saw the aftermath of it all?
There are multiple places where the characters keep saying "What the f---?" as though to hammer home the point that we are supposed to be asking the same question. And the film offers plenty of moments that prompt this reaction from our side. Someone would be tempted to ask: Couldn’t they have come up with better dialogues?
Look, it's not, after all, a film about sophisticated intellectuals who can come up with a more family-friendly way of asking the same question. It's about ordinary folks who end up making certain... uh... wishes that come true, much to their detriment. There's no explanation for the mechanics of it all. Barker knows that much of the terror comes from the unknown and the unseen.
Think of it as a Stephen King story if made by Paul Thomas Anderson — or, Richard Linklater, maybe? I'm not saying Barker is the same kind of filmmaker. No. What I mean is that, like Anderson, Barker has a talent for providing the actors and technicians a lot of breathing space. They are not in a hurry to get to the end (this film is just under two hours). I won't get into the story because it's better to go in without reading anything about it.
It's safe to mention a few films that share a similarly claustrophobic mood, in a few places. Off the top of my head: "Fatal Attraction", "Get Out", "Us", "Misery" and "The Shining". And considering the budget (reportedly near $1 million), don't expect an amateur-looking film. It looks as professional as anything made by Jordan Peele or Denis Villeneuve or Christopher Nolan — minus the big-scale spectacle, of course.
Film: Obsession
Director: Curry Barker
Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, Andy Richte
Rating: 4/5
