The horror hit of the year is Obsession, YouTuber-turned-filmmaker Curry Barker’s terrifying feature debut. Made for just $750,000, the micro-budget shocker has become a box office phenomenon, grossing $373 million and counting to rank among the most profitable films in modern cinematic history, earning nearly 500 times its production budget. And for good reason. It’s inspired.
Obsession takes the classic “be careful what you wish for” monkey-paw-esque horror premise and transforms it into a sharp, terrifying deconstruction of the “nice guy” trope. Thanks to a stunning performance from star Inde Navarrette, Curry’s distinctive directing style, and a story that isn’t afraid to take big swings, it takes an overused premise and turns it on its head, delivering one of the year’s most unsettling and unexpectedly thought-provoking horror films.
The much-talked-about ending has left fans of the film stunned. Here is a look at the ending explained, as well as what the director has said about the ending.Warning: There are spoilers ahead for Obsession.
What is Obsession about?
Meet Baron “Bear” Bailey (Michael Johnston). Bear is a coward. Bear has had a longstanding crush on his coworker Nikki, whom he has been working with at the music store, but due to his inability to act, he has let it fester to the point they’re impossible to ignore.
One day, while buying crystals for Nikki, he comes across a novelty toy called the One Wish Willow and buys it. After he blows yet another chance to tell Nikki how he really feels, he uses the One Wish Willow in frustration, breaking it while saying he wishes for Nikki to “love him more than anyone in the f**king world.”
Focus Features /Courtesy Everett Collection
The effects are immediate. Nikki can’t get enough of Bear. She needs to be near him all the time. She won’t leave his side. She watches him nonstop, even while he sleeps. She duct-tapes his door shut. She feeds him his dead cat. She waits by the door for his return. She even begins to self-harm as the real Nikki struggles to fight back against whatever has taken control of her.
How does it end?
First, Bear attempts to break the spell. He calls the customer service number on the back of the One Wish Willow package and is told the only way to break the wish is through his own death. The representative then offers to let him speak to Nikki, and all he hears are her shrieks of terror.
Desperate, Bear returns to the store and buys dozens of One Wish Willows, hoping another wish will undo the first. But, as the name promises, he only gets one wish. The novelty “toy” won’t break again.
While sleeping, the real Nikki occasionally breaks through the spell. Horrified by her lack of autonomy, she begs Bear to kill her. But Bear only seems to care whether she truly loves him.
Bear sneaks out of the house to meet their friend Sarah (Megan Lawless), who has just gotten into art school. While they’re chatting in the car, Nikki creeps up behind Sarah and repeatedly smashes her face into a brick before sweetly asking Bear to help dispose of the body.
Bear turns to his buddy Ian (Cooper Tomlinson), who dismisses the whole story as poppycock. Bear begs him to use a One Wish Willow to turn Nikki back, but Ian instead wishes for a billion dollars… and a billion dollars literally falls from the ceiling.
When Bear returns home, he finds Sarah’s corpse propped up on an altar while Nikki, wearing Sarah’s clothes and hair, desperately begs to be loved. Ian walks into the room, and Nikki immediately shoots him.
Unable to face the monster he has created, Bear locks himself in the bathroom and swallows his late grandmother’s pills in an attempt to end his life. But, true to form, he loses his nerve and tries to make himself throw them up when he hears a familiar sound.
Is that the chime of a One Wish Willow being opened?
Suddenly, a brand-new, love-struck Bear wanders into the living room and finds an obsessed Nikki. The two embrace. Just as they seem doomed to spend eternity trapped in a relationship stripped of all consent, Bear begins to gag. The pills finally take hold, and he dies in Nikki’s arms.
A distraught Nikki sobs. As Bear’s death rattles grow louder, she picks up the gun and prepares to take her own life. But the moment Bear dies, the real Nikki suddenly returns, horrified by the death and destruction she has been forced to cause.
What are the implications?
First, the idea that the real Nikki was trapped inside “Freaky Nikki” the entire time is genuinely horrifying. Every act, every murder, every display of affection wasn’t really her; it was the curse. Something was forcing her actions while the real Nikki was powerless to stop it. Yet she remained conscious, buried somewhere in that smiling facade, a witness to every heinous act the not-Nikki committed. Not to mention Bear using her.
The brief moments when she breaks through, desperately begging Bear to kill her and end the nightmare, completely reframe everything that came before. It transforms the over-the-top horror-comedy moments into something far more terrible. Nikki isn’t the villain at all. Bear is the monster, and she is his creation.
What will happen to Nikki after the movie?
Director Curry Barker confirmed with CinemaBlend that Nikki’s fate is pretty bleak. After the spell breaks and she is freed from Bear’s toxic influence, she is left at a crime scene covered in blood. “She probably goes to jail. She’s probably going to prison for a very long time. There’s also, like, a billion dollars in Ian’s house, and Ian’s dead on the floor. She’s connected to that money in some way. Who knows what the cops are gonna put together as the story? She’s not gonna have a very good life, I don’t think. It’s very sad.”
Obsession, Available for rent or purchase, Prime Video, Apple TV, and most digital retailers