Obsession

I fucking love horror movies. It locks you in so hard that for two hours you completely disconnect from the real world. Even though it is a genre I love so much, the number of truly good horror movies like Hereditary is seriously low. The market is usually filled with quick cash grab projects.

I didn't even know the movie Obsession was coming out. It was never on my radar until I saw it being showered with praise on Twitter. I checked the trailer, saw it was good, and ran straight to the theater.

Apparently, the guy who made the movie is a YouTuber. I don't know him, but these kinds of projects have seriously increased lately. I have absolutely no problem with bringing a different perspective to the industry from the outside. I didn't watch Iron Lung or anything so I can't comment on those, but I am sure this guy made this movie with pure passion.

Our main character gets rejected by the girl he likes, so he uses a wishbone to wish for the girl to love him. And then the girl takes it way too far. Now, first of all, I am diving straight in with a critique, are we ready? I didn't like this whole wish thing at all. Because later in the movie, when we see the girl acting weird, we as the audience already know the reason behind it. This straight up kills the most important factor in horror, which is the unknown. It reduces the impact heavily. But despite that, the movie still managed to make me shit my pants. I jumped out of my seat in a couple of scenes and got beautifully tense.

The movie aims to terrify through the uncanny valley effect. Meaning, the character's facial expression is A but they act like B, and it creates a very ominous feeling. Also, the use of lighting and the shots were genuinely amazing. Inde Navarrette played the lead role incredibly well. She absolutely crushed it. This was the first movie of hers that I watched. (I heard she was in 13 Reasons Why as well, I watched that a long time ago but I couldn't remember her.) Also, that classic trope where horror movie characters act like 3 IQ dumbasses is unfortunately present in this one too. Everyone is literally as useless as a fern.

Be a YouTuber, a streamer, or a bus driver, I don't give a shit. But if you are gonna come with works made with this much passion, my door is wide open. Welcome aboard.