Obsession (2026) is a wish-fulfillment film about a timid music clerk, the sort of sad sack unable to express his true feelings for a co-worker. But his fantasy for having her love him comes true with a six-dollar wishing willow stick from a new-age novelty store. The first kiss triggers an electrifying scream.
The film operates on a flip-switch between performative adoration and public freak-outs, alternating between honeymoon bliss and spiraling hissy fits at a restaurant to 3am jags of insecurity, whimperings from the darkest corners of the bedroom, spiderly black.
The horror escalates with cringe-comedic precision: a duct-taped door (honey, you should really stay home), a gruesome sandwich, an awkward party scene turned bloody, a gasp-out-loud murder.
The film reaches its crescendo in a house of horrors that looks like an Ed Gein starter kit. Jörg Buttgereit’s Nekromantik comes to mind, as does Dario Argento’s Jenifer, featuring a disfigured succubus in a nipply nightgown who could have been an older sister to Obsession’s bedazzled, self-immolating love interest.
Obsession is dreadful in the best sense; you survive the mania and emerge feeling grateful, as if you’d escaped a mental ward where fairy-tale wishes become blood-drenched nightmares. Careful, you might fall in love. Barf bag not included.
Demented Flicks 