‘Obsession’ Review: I Like It, but Only as a Friend
Curry Barker's ambitious and clever morality tale offers a showstopping Inde Navarrette performance amid some engrossing ideas, a sense of melancholy and grimly witty pay-offs.
Obsession (2026)
- 109 minutes
- Rated R for “strong bloody violence, grisly images, sexual content, pervasive language, and brief graphic nudity.” (whew… that’s a Yatzee!)
- Written, directed and edited by Curry Barker
- Produced by James Harris, Haley Nicole Johnson, Christian Mercuri and Roman Viaris
- Starring Michael Johnston, , Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless
- Music by Rock Burlwell
- Cinematography by Taylor Clemons
- Production Companies: Capstone Pictures, Tea Shop Productions and Blumhouse Productions
- Distributed by Focus Features and Universal
- Opening in theaters the week of May 15, 2026
Not unlike Get Out and Brightburn, varying quality notwithstanding, Obsession’s core premise is so potent, primal and compelling that I’m shocked that nobody had previously used it for a scary movie. That’s probably an exaggeration, as any number of television episodes centered upon strange magic or weird science that causes one half of a would-be “will they or won’t they” romance to throw inhibitions to the wind and/or fall madly in love with the “friend-zoned” half. Those shows, and features like Love Potion No. 9 (starring a pre-Demolition Man Sandra Bullock), mostly played the concept for comedic effect or as rom-com tropes. But as a straight-up horror flick, well, this feels like a long time coming. Written, directed and edited by Curry Barker, the Focus Features release plays like the core high concept stripped down to its bare essentials. The oppressive intimacy adds an extra level of visual claustrophobia, emotional suffocation and somber dread.
That’s partially due to a $1 million budget and//or its glorified “do it yourself” nature. Focus Features picked this one up following its “Midnight Madness” premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, after which Universal agreed to handle overseas distribution while Jason Blum attached himself as an executive producer. And yes, as a clever, high-concept original courtesy of a young, emerging talent, this is exactly the kind of thing Blumhouse Productions should be picking up and showing off. Ditto, kinda-sorta, A24’s upcoming creepypasta-based Backrooms, which lists James Wan as a producer and Atomic Monster as one of its production companies. Whether both Jason and James can share mutual credit for either release, now that Blumhouse and Atomic Monster have merged, these are the kind of potential breakouts we’d want to see from their respective banners. Whatever my nitpicks, Obsession acts as Blumhouse telling Neon and IFC to get the hell off its lawn.
