r/obsessionmovie

Just genuinely not sure what it is about people loving to gas up a modern horror like it’s the best/scariest film ever made. The hype was overly alive for this one, and it makes sense to certain degree. I enjoyed the creepy moments, I appreciated that it didn’t do cheap jump scares, the acting was great, the atmosphere pulls you in, and it unfolds well. That’s all, though. It doesn’t feel like you are truly seeing something new or a deep scare you haven’t felt before. It does what has been done in almost every modern horror movie or “elevated” horror, but it does it well I’ll admit. But to say it’s holding a candle to hereditary (like I’ve seen many people say) is insane to me.

Please read what I have to say before you come at me.

I saw Obsession opening night last Thursday with a friend of mine. I remember turning to him like 45 min in and saying something like, “This is bad” to which he agreed. By the end of it we both had a bitter taste in our mouth.

Before I get into the more in depth thoughts I have I really just want to get the point across that I don’t like “magic” or that sort of thing without explanation. It definitely works, like Smile and Talk to Me are two of my fav horror movies of all time but they take the time to give at least a little context on the why. It seems like the movie takes place in a world where people can just go and buy these wishes. I feel like it would definitely be a bigger deal than it is made out to be. I barely saw any trailers for this movie btw, I am a horror fanatic so I just go to whatever horror movies are playing lol. I thought it was gonna be like some crazy girl he met on a dating app was stalking him and obsessing over him but no, no it wasn’t.

Okay time for in-depth shit. Spoilers ahead.

I didn’t hate the movie, I think all of the actors did incredible jobs especially the girl who played Nikki. I preface this because the more you hate a character the better the actor is. I absolutely hated Bear. He was so infuriating because of how selfish he is. The quickest way to define his character is the scene where he calls the number on the back and finds out that the “real” Nikki is in pain and he is given the option to cancel the wish (Later it’s revealed this was never an option but at this point Bear doesn’t know that) instead of saving his friend from suffering he tries to alter it rather than canceling it.

I relate to Bear a lot. I yearned over a girl for years without doing anything but I’d never want her to suffer because of me. That’s not real love.

The scene where Nikki’s body is asleep but the real her is awake and begging Bear to kill her is probably the best scene in the whole film. It again shows how selfish Bear is because the whole time she’s begging he’s trying to minimize and justify his actions. That’s psychotic and to top it off he then leaves her to go see Sarah (I think that’s what the other friends name is) and when she asks him if he knows what’s wrong or anything he continues the lie. He does this not to convince Sarah everything’s okay, but to convince himself that everything’s okay. This also then leads to Sarah being killed by Nikki.

There is never a lesson learned for Bear as he just kills himself (easy way out) like 20 min later. That’s why I don’t like the movie. It’s not necessarily a bad movie after watching it to its completion. It has a lot of great, emotional scenes. But in the end the curse is gone and Nikki has to live with the fact that she not only killed two people, her best friends, but also that she had no control over her own body and actions. There is no amount of therapy that could even make a dent on the trauma that this left in her. Also she probably will go to jail since how is she gonna explain any of it.

In conclusion the movie has some highs, but the lows are too much for me. My friend has been texting me reviews of the movie since we saw it because he doesn’t understand why everyone loves it so much, and either do I. People are allowed to have their own opinions which is why I want genuine answers here. I truly want to understand why people like it so much.

That movie was so insane.. omg. I’ve read through hella Reddit posts but so far no one is talking about how tf did Nikki know bear was in the car with Sarah. I genuinely thought she was gonna wake up and spaz on him for being on his phone but she (somehow) stayed asleep and then the whole “real Nikki” situation happened okay and he still successfully snuck out. But I’m struggling to grapple how.. If she strategically followed him and waited to attack Sarah out the window like that.. that’s cold asf lmfao. But Im thinking more like okay she woke up saw he was gone and then what.. tracked him down like a bloodhound ?. What do you guys think?

I just wanna talk about Sarah's death. When she and Bear meet in the car, I was totally expecting Freaky Nikki to come and attack them. But the execution was so brutal that I was still shocked.

Some of my analysis on the film, Obsession and important details I havent seen people talk about yet

1. Starting with an obvious yet misunderstood take - Bear is the villain, Nikki is the victim.

 

I’ve seen many people also say no one’s a victim, everyone’s a victim, everyone’s the villain, etc. 

Let's start off with the fact that Nikki was being mindlessly controlled while her subconscious was active and aware the entire time! Why would she be a villain when she had no power over her autonomy? And the number of times she tries to escape this spellbind? The number of times she snaps back confused, scared, traumatized. She literally begged Bear to kill her - not even a “help me, bear”, she would just rather die. Imagine going through months of watching yourself being possessed, moving “thoughtlessly” while simultaneously feeling your real thoughts. 

Bear is 1000% the villain. Even before all the crazy stuff happened, I didn’t even consider  Bear making that wish in an innocent, unknowing way. From a surface level, a boy wishes a girl would love him more than anyone else. On a deeper level, a boy wishes for a girl to be spellbound and forced to give up her freedom in order to live just for him (and that’s quite literally what she does: one example is when Bear is going to work and she says she’ll wait for him - she does indeed wait for him in that same standing position, peeing and pooping on herself for hours, fighting with herself for hours. Another scene where she pretends to read a book but the book was upside down the whole time. There’s nothing more important to her than “loving” Bear, so if she’s not doing that - then she does absolutely nothing while waiting for him). It’s also obvious he does not regret it. When he calls the one wish willow company, instead of asking to cancel the wish that would save real Nikki, he wants to “alter it.”, when he hears the real Nikk’s (her soul /subconscious) through the phone and her blood-curdling screaming, he just hangs up and goes about his night. Bringing up that same scene, when the real nikki asks him to kill her, Bear asks, “what’s so bad about being with me?” (how selfless!). When he tries to kill himself, he regrets it at the last minute, proving that his character never changed. He was a greedy, egomaniacal coward from beginning to end. Additionally, his guilty consciousness shows up a few times. When the real nikki pops out the first time they kissed, Bear immediately screams, “you kissed me first!” and “you made me feel like i did something you didn’t like” as if nikki was blaming him for being some assaulter. When Nikki comes back to apologize, Bear gets nervous when Nikki reassures him that she doesn’t think he took advantage of her. Deep down, he knows what he's doing is wrong. The rape scene (which was 1000% a rape scene) was horrific to watch, as it felt like i was watching Bear fuck a dead body. Throughout the film, Bear watches Nikki go through emotional, psychotic and distressing spells. He KNOWS he’s the reason why she’s acting this way, but continues to follow his craving of being “loved” by nikki, neglecting the real nikki (who never loved him and who he never loved, leading to my next point). 

1. There wasn’t necessarily a demon possessing her, Bear was possessing her.

I’ve seen people talk about what entity/ demonic spirit was controlling Nikki's body. That “entity” is simply Bear’s concept of the “love” he had for Nikki. The way Nikki was acting mirrors how Bear felt and perceived her. Bear never loved her; he was obsessed with her, and Nikki was projecting his obsessiveness the entire time. Bear doesn’t even know what love is. When Nikki is talking about her writing and about wanting a romance, not a love story, Bear goes, “What’s the difference?”. Nikki’s trance was Bear’s twisted love story.

Because Bear’s love for Nikki was actually an obsession, the wish is granted by showcasing Bear's “understanding” of love through Nikki. Nikki repeatedly talks about how much she loves Bear, but her actions never show it. That’s because Bear doesn’t know how to love her, so she doesn't know how to love him either, even though she’s restrained to. Bear was obsessed with a version of Nikki and forcefully projected that onto her. 

After the trance, they seemed like a perfect couple. But the moment bear started getting tired of her, that's when things got chaotic. Again, because nikki is a manifestation of his desires, once she detects that he isn’t satisfied with her “love”, she gets more and more deranged to prove to him exactly what he wished for, and she of course will do whatever it takes to prove that. Because Bear's depiction of love is distorted, the ways Nikki tries to prove it to him are also very distorted. 

Other scenes that emphasize that Nikki’s trance is actually Bear’s cognition. 

As soon as the trance starts and she walks back to Bear’s car, Nikki talks about losing HER cat. Bear gets confused, Nikki realizes what she said and goes, “I mean, your cat”. I think that was the first hint that shows Nikki is casting what Bear thinks. She wasn’t confused, it was just the commencement of living in Bear's thoughts and living FOR Bear’s thoughts. 

When Nikki packs him lunch along with those two Polaroids, one of the photos was of Bear with the caption “you” and the other of her and Bear with the caption “not me”. A direct way of Nikki telling Bear that she is mirroring him and it isn’t the real her. 

3. Her passion for writing is reflected in her Hansel and Gretel story as well as her elucidative rant on how she would feel being all alone in bed when Bear suggested they take a break. Those two scenes were examples of other ways the real nikki pops out other than her waking up from the bound throughout the film. The Hansel and Gretel storyline was essentially the movie's overall story. The real Nikki is indirectly telling Bear that she sees him as a brother and he still forces himself upon her. She expresses her genuine emotions through peotry.

4. “Freaky Nikki” - real Nikki hated that name but constantly calls herself that throughout her possession for Bears validation. Another thing is in the beginning, when Bear calls her that and Nikki says  “you know I don’t like that name” and Bear admits that he did know that, but he still continued to call her it. It’s also a reflection of his inability to accept boundaries. He recognizes boundaries; again, he admits he knew Nikki hated that name and the trauma it caused, but said it anyway. This was the first subtle way in the film where Bear oversteps and violates, making both Bear and Nikki uncomfortable in that interaction. Bear making that one willow wish is an overall illustration of him overstepping and violating (controlling Nikki's autonomy), leading to both Bear and (real) Nikki being uncomfortable and hurting throughout the rest of the film.

5. The tiger eye that Nikki gifts Bear- A stone that signifies willpower. Nikki was essentially giving her willpower to Bear. Not that Bear didn’t already have it, but it felt like a cry from real Nikki, as she is unfortunately accepting the fact that she no longer has control over herself.

6. Sleeping - when Bear wakes up to find Nikki in the corner, Nikki tells him that she doesn’t like her dreams, hence why she wasn’t sleeping. I think the reason she doesn’t like her dreams is that she's battling with the real Nikki. When you sleep, your mind is still active. As mentioned before, Nikki's subconscious is active throughout her entire possession, so when “freaky” Nikki is dreaming, her dreams are of real Nikki and they're probably portraying the pain and suffering she's going through. Freaky Nikki doesn't have a mind of her own, she is a script of Bear’s wants. So when she sleeps, the real Nikki is the one in control as the subconscious mind is highly active in that state, which is also why she was able to speak to Bear even though her body was asleep. 

7. Lowk getting tired of typing but last thing I wanna mention is people thinking Nikki is going to jail or she’ll just be traumatized for the rest of her life. Realistically, I think Nikki would've just ended up killing herself. Again, she asked bear to kill her instead of asking him to find ways to save her. Can you imagine being actively aware while having no control over your words and actions? Can you imagine watching yourself kill your friends or cut up a cat to put in a sandwich or harming yourself to escape yourself? Or seeing everyone look at you like you’re some freak when deep down you know this isn’t you talking or moving. The way her subconscious self was screaming through the phone? How can you continue living after all you’ve been through because of a stupid boy’s wish? I think if the film ended with what Nikki did after fully grasping her situation, it would have been her picking back up that gun to shoot herself after.

Please feel free to express your thoughts or other things you’ve noticed, I want to hear different opinions!

Nikki was making no sense and I’m still not sure why

Right now I’m thinking its the alter ego briefly getting used to being human or talking in the English language

Or maybe just reading bears mind

Just got out of my second watch of the film, and some additional thoughts came to mind for me about the wish Entity. There were some scenes where possessed Nikki was at a loss for how to support Bear. Not from a, "I am losing grip on Bear and must think of a way to manipulate him into regaining control," situation. Rather a, "I don't know how to make Bear love me, but the wish forces me to do so anyways."

It makes me wonder exactly how much it has agency in this situation? Obviously Nikki is being possessed by this thing and is the ultimate victim, but what if "it" is also a victim of the wish as well? From the Entity's perspective, its life's purpose is to exist in this husk of a body and to love Bear with every ounce of its being. Except Bear doesn't love it... he loves Nikki, yet it doesn't know how to be Nikki. It can only mimic Nikki and act like what it thinks Bear would want.

Its like if you asked an AI program to pretend to be a celebrity and to roleplay a relationship. Its going to do everything correct at the surface level, but its never going to replace the real thing because it's not the real thing. The prompt = the wish, and its programming dictates that it must find a way to make the user happy, but it never can fully.

Over the course of the film we see it get more and more drastic in its solutions to make Bear love it. Like an AI program given a paradoxical task and being forced to complete it. Eventually its going to start spouting incoherent nonsense before it completely breaks. Or in this films case, going from making up a lie about her dad having cancer to gain sympathy, to displaying Sarah's massacred body in a ritualistic fashion because maybe somehow someway this will make Bear want to love it.

Maybe this too was gibberish lol, but its just something that came to mind in my second watch through of the film.

When Nikki was in bed actually talking to bear, it sounds like she's saying Fey or Fae is sleeping, I don't know if I'm hearing wrong because theyre so much discourse on what obsessed nikki actually is and I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet 😭

So I just saw "Bear and the big blue balls" aka obsession and it was terrific, it made me cringe in a good way (and I didn't even know that was possible) sure it has that trope "be careful what you wish for" but it adds just enough new elements to it that makes it unique. I like how they didn't make the guy bear an innocent guy or a complete scumbag but just a dude who wanted to believe his crush truly loves him to the point he almost becomes so pathetic it's creepy. What did you guys think of the movie? 😁

Confused on the motivations of cutting his hair? This was quite early on in the film aswell.

How did the cat get into the narcotics that were up in the medicine cabinet?! I have so many questions for that cat....

One question I have about this movie is a nitpicking one but what makes the one wish hollow believe that the way Nikki was acting was “love”? I understand there would be no movie without that toxic “obsessed” view of love but you could argue it could have been the other way around as well of a “perfect” lover. Simply being perfect in the ways of patience, understanding, supportive, etc.

I think this went over a lot of our heads just because it’s easy to accept the “love gone wrong” narrative.
Or does this bring up a good philosophical debate about love 🤔

A lot of discussion has been taking place over the last few days regarding who the villain of Obsession truly is. Is it Bear? (Yes) Is it Freaky Nikki? (Also yes). Is it the real Nikki? (No and it’s fucking weird that people actually try to argue that). However I believe we are foolishly focusing on the wrong characters solely because they take up the majority of screen time. I believe the film’s ultimate villain, the true master mind behind everything is…Sandy!

Look, we all know Cats are evil: Katz from Courage the Cowardly Dog, the Cat demons from All Dogs go to Heaven, the fact that the movie Cats (2019) was ever made in the first place, etc. So I believe Sandy purposefully orchestrated the events of the entire movie using her own suicide to set things into motion. And we get our evidence for this very early on.

Right after Bear makes his wish “freaky” Nikki mentions that HER cat just died before quickly correcting to Bear’s cat having just died. Many mistakenly believe that this is whatever is possessing Nikki trying to mimic the real Nikki and not getting it quite right. But I saw this “slip up” for what it truly was. Undeniable, irrefutable proof that Sandy was living a double life as BOTH Bear AND Nikki’s pet cat, sneaking out at random intervals to occupy both spaces at different times.

“But, but TJ” I hear you say “Sandy was dead the whole time! How could she be the villain.” You silly goober, Sandy PLANNED TO DIE FROM THE BEGINNING. She truly exemplifies hater energy. Giving her own life to take out both of her owners. She would have known that Bear has feelings for Nikki, and she would have known that Nikki wants Bear at trivia night so they can win. So she deliberately became bipedal, used her paws to carefully open the child safety cap on the medication, and staged her own death scene.

She knew that this would make Bear apprehensive about going to trivia so Nikki would have to call him to convince him. She would have also known that Nikki is clumsy and can’t multitask well, thus Bear would hear her drop her necklace down the drain and wind up at that store to purchase the one wish willow and make his wish, setting their inevitable downfall into motion.

“But TJ,” I hear you ask again “how would Sandy have known about the one wish willows?” Well, if you accept the above to be true, which I have just laid out all the ways it objectively is, then the only logical conclusion is that SANDY WAS ACTUALLY LIVING A TRIPLE LIFE AS THE STORE CLERK’S SECRET PET AS WELL.

Therefore Sandy knew Bear would pathetically not be able to ask out Nikki. She knew he’d be drawn to the one wish willow and the wish would go awry quickly. She knew that Nikki would get possessed and that they would both eventually be destroyed by the wish. And why did she do all this? Fuck if I know, Bear probably forgot to feed her once or something. Cats are evil man.

TL;DR: Sandy is an evil mastermind.

I keep seeing everyone discuss the moments that made their skin crawl and yes the bedroom scene, car scene and reverse walk were horrifying, especialllyyyy the reverse walk but did anyone else notice that freakishly split second moment near the end when bear comes back to his place after Ian wishes for a billion dollars and if you BLINK you’ll miss it but Nikki starts moving in this stop motion-like manner by the window and I cannot stop thinking about it. Does anyone know where I can find this scene? Does anyone even remember it lol