I know I’m late, but I finally watched Obsession.
You know that question women are always asked: Would you rather be alone in the forest with a man or a bear? Women almost always choose the bear. But what happens when the man is named Bear.
Apparently, you get one of the most unsettling horror movies I have watched in a long time.
The way Nikki’s possession was portrayed with something as simple as their choices in how they light the scene was cool as fuck. It was restrained, eerie and so effective.
The movie opens with Bear sitting at a diner, rehearsing how he is going to confess his feelings to Nikki. It is this grandiose, neckbeard-esque profession of love. The kind of speech a man creates in his head after building an entire romantic relationship with a woman who has not actually agreed to be in one.
His friends neg him, of course.
Later, everyone hangs out, and Bear tries to muster up the courage to tell Nikki how he feels. He fails. After the hangout, Bear volunteers to drive Nikki home. During the ride, he tells her he has a secret gift for her: a one-wish willow.
Nikki visibly cringes.
Not dramatically. Not cruelly. It is that small, familiar reaction women recognize immediately—the moment you realize a man is about to confess feelings you already know you do not return, and you begin calculating how to respond without embarrassing him, upsetting him or making the situation feel unsafe.
Still, she tries to keep things polite and playful. Not because she is encouraging him, but because she is trying to disarm the situation.
As the movie progresses, it is implied that Nikki has been possessed. She is trapped inside her body. Her body has become a vessel, and something else is controlling it. Something else decides how she moves, what she says, who she touches and how she behaves.
But the real Nikki is still in there.
Sometimes she manages to break through.
As whatever possessed her grows stronger, those moments become rarer and more desperate. Nikki is conscious enough to understand what is happening to her, but powerless to stop it.
She is watching her own body kiss Bear. She is watching herself hook up with him. She is watching her body perform desire while she remains trapped somewhere underneath it all. Then one night, while Nikki is asleep at Bear’s house, the real Nikki manages to surface.
Bear is leaving the room when she whispers to him.
“Kill her.”
She begs him to kill her before “she” wakes up.
She is asking someone she trusts to release her from this nightmare. She would rather die than remain trapped inside a body that no longer belongs to her.
Bear looks at her with this incredulous expression and asks:
“What’s so bad about being with me?”
Then he walks away.
My stomach dropped.
The story overall was unpredictable. It took me to places I did not expect. But that moment? I saw it coming. I knew he would make it about himself. Because he is a small, insecure man.
He does not see a woman who has been possessed by something that has stolen her autonomy, her thoughts and her free will. He does not see that she is trapped.
He does not think about what it must be like for Nikki to watch her own body kiss him and have sex with him over and over again while being unable to stop it.
He does not care whether it is the real Nikki or not. He got what he wanted. “Nikki” loves him more than anyone else in the world. That is enough for him. The supernatural entity may be controlling Nikki’s body, but Bear is the one who decides her imprisonment is acceptable because it benefits him.
Nikki is begging him for freedom, and all he hears is an insult to his desirability.
“What’s so bad about being with me?” Everything.
He is the monster of the story.
I digress.
That scene between Nikki and Bear reminded me of my sleep-paralysis episodes.
It reminded me of how terrifying it is to be conscious but unable to control your body.
You are trapped.
You are constantly trying to break through and wake up from a nightmare that is happening while you are technically already awake.
There was Nikki, staring at Bear.
Her friend.
Someone she trusted.
Someone she cared about.
She was begging him to free her.
And the man who placed her in this hell refused to let her out because he liked the version of her that the possession had created. He looked directly at her suffering and asked what could possibly be so terrible about giving him what he wanted.
During one of my sleep-paralysis episodes, I could not wake myself up.
A dark shadow entity stood in front of me while I tried to break through the paralysis.
With growl, it said: “I bet you wish you could wake up.”
It watched me twitch and struggle to make a sound.
I was terrified because I knew the longer I remained trapped, the more likely it was that the entity would become angry. In past episodes, they have moved closer, gotten directly in my face and taunted me.
This one seemed to enjoy watching me try to escape.
That is how I imagine Nikki felt. Something was using her body, and she could not stop it. She could only watch. She could occasionally fight her way back to the surface, but even when she managed to ask for help, the person she trusted chose to leave her trapped.
What makes that scene especially scary is that I know there are real men who want this.
And if you are a woman reading this, you know it too. There are men who would watch Obsession and believe Bear is just a nice guy who never got a chance.
They would think Nikki was a bitch for rejecting him.
They would say he could have been so good to her if she had just looked past the surface.
They would believe his loneliness entitled him to her affection.
They would see her autonomy as cruelty.
There is a reason people are using the phrase “incel horror” to describe this new wave of films exploring male entitlement, resentment, isolation and the belief that women owe men affection, access and validation.
The monster is not always a man who openly hates women. Sometimes the monster is a man who believes he loves one. A man who thinks wanting her badly enough makes him deserving. A man who believes his pain is more important than her freedom. A man who frames coercion as romance because he has convinced himself that he is the hero. That is what makes these stories feel so reflective of the moment we are living in.
The monster exists outside the movie.
He is in the comment section.
He is in the group chat.
He is in the podcast studio explaining why women should have fewer rights.
He is calling himself a “nice guy” while describing women as prizes, property or rewards. He thinks the problem is that women will not choose him. It never occurs to him that the problem may be who he has chosen to become.
I wish incels understood that the very patriarchy they stand for has helped place them in this position. It teaches men that masculinity means dominance. That vulnerability is weakness. That women are rewards for status, money, physical strength or persistence. That there is a correct set of actions a man can perform to earn access to a woman. Then, when the woman does not appear, they believe the rules have been broken.
Women like confident, funny people. Women like people who are emotionally intelligent, curious, interesting and capable of seeing them as human beings.
You do not need to become a Gigachad. Gigachad is for the guys.
Bear could have made a different choice.
When Nikki asked him to help her, he understood enough to recognize that something was deeply wrong. He simply decided that her suffering was worth it.
Ya know I was never much of a horror fan. For years, horror gave Party City to me: rubber masks, corny demons, loud jump scares and someone walking into a basement when any sensible person would have already left the house, moved to another state and changed their name.
When people showed me The Conjuring movies, I thought they were CORNY BOOTS. I know some people will be offended by that, but that is my opinion. They just never scared me.
I feel the same way about Terrifier. The gore feels excessive for the sake of shock, and personally, I find that kind of horror a little corny too. Other people love it, though, so… meh.
Then my husband, who is a huge horror fan. He love arthouse horror, Korean horror and atmospheric horror, introduced me to films where the real horror exists in real life.
Films about grief.
Isolation.
Obsession.
Power.
Entitlement.
The loss of bodily autonomy.
The realization that someone who claims to love you does not actually see you as a person. That is what scares me. A rubber mask may startle you. A jump scare may make you spill your drink. But a story that exposes something true about the world follows you home.
Obsession is an excellent example of that kind of horror.
The possession is frightening, but the real terror is human. A man gets exactly what he thinks he wants. A woman loses control of her body, her choices and her life. And when she begs him to save her, he decides that her suffering is a reasonable price to pay for being loved.
Because from his perspective, what could possibly be so bad about being with him?
Apparently, everything.
Oh, and if you loved Obsession, head over to Chuck’s YouTube channel and watch Milk & Serial. It is another excellent horror movie from him and further proof that you do not need a massive budget to make something deeply unsettling.
What are some of your favorite horror movies where the real monster feels uncomfortably familiar?
