Obsession

We knew we were going to watch this film the moment we saw the trailer. And after hearing so many positive reviews, I couldn’t contain my excitement — though I did lower my expectations a little after some people I know gave mixed opinions. Thank God that didn’t matter, because it didn’t disappoint at all. Spoilers ahead!

First, a huge shout-out to Inde Navarrette — she was absolutely fascinating in this film. Her performance gave me chills in so many scenes. Bravo!

The visuals, the camerawork and the music were all excellent. The atmosphere was tense and unsettling throughout. Nikki’s predatory eye glow and her inhuman movements were masterfully done — that kind of movement always gets to me, the same way it did in Us and Weapons. Those films scared me too, and I loved them.

The idea, the message and its execution were also really strong. A fair number of people complained that the concept is too basic and unoriginal, but come on! Everything you read, watch or hear has roots going back thousands of years and has been retold hundreds of times throughout human history. What matters is bringing something fresh to an old idea and executing it well, and this film does exactly that.

Some negative reviews also complained about the story being too simple, while simultaneously missing the point of the cat storyline and the detail of “possessed” Nikki doing everything — including defecating — where she stood. I’m not the filmmaker, but I read these as deliberate choices to show Bear’s character and just how bad Nikki’s situation actually was. The whole cat situation reveals Bear’s lack of empathy and responsibility, he didn’t keep the medication away from the cat, the cat got poisoned and died, and Bear barely grieved. He cleaned up, cried briefly and moved on. That tells you exactly what kind of person you’re dealing with. And even after unknowingly eating a sandwich made from his long-dead cat, all he could do was tell her she shouldn’t cook cats, as if it were just a small thing. That cat never got a proper burial after everything its body went through, because its owner simply didn’t care.

The scene with Nikki shows that she never left the spot where she said goodbye to him for work. She just stood there all day, motionless, doing nothing. That’s genuinely terrifying when you think about it.

I also think it was a great touch to include glimpses of the real Nikki. Being trapped inside your own body with no understanding of what’s happening and no control over it is a horrifying concept.

The fact that so many men in the comments either thought Nikki was the real villain or complained that the film made it impossible to sympathise with Bear says a lot. Because Bear is the real villain of this story, from start to finish. He’s the one with communication problems who had every chance to be honest about his feelings and chose not to. He’s the one who lacked empathy and basic human decency. He wasn’t actually in love with Nikki — he was using her to fill the void of his own loneliness and insecurities, instead of pursuing someone with whom he might have had mutual feelings. He witnessed everything that possessed Nikki did and said, and kept acting like everything was fine, because he enjoyed the feeling of being needed, feeding off her dependence on him. Not her hurting herself, not her frightening him, not even her killing a coworker was enough to make him take responsibility for what he had done. When he finally had a chance to speak with the real Nikki, he made it entirely about himself and his feelings, and then left her begging for help. Even the ending shows how selfish he is — he could have killed Nikki to break the possession (since it ends only with the death of one of them) and then faced prison for the three people who died, which would have been a fair consequence for what he set in motion. Instead, he just killed himself. He left Nikki traumatised, confused and alone in an apartment with three dead bodies and a roomful of party guests who had witnessed before her apparent breakdown. He used her for his own needs and set her up completely, walking away from the crime scene without facing a single consequence!

This film is a perfect portrait of a certain kind of man — the type who genuinely believes he’s just an average guy who happens to be lonely because the world is unfair. But dig a little deeper and it becomes very clear why this person is alone, and you find yourself hoping it stays that way, so no one else’s life gets ruined by the quiet darkness he carries.