What if getting everything you wanted from love was the most terrifying thing that could happen to you. That is the engine of Obsession, the 2026 Blumhouse backed horror thriller from writer director Curry Barker, and it is one of the year’s most talked about genre surprises. A 94 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and a matching 94 percent Popcornmeter have turned a small, twisted fairy tale into a word of mouth hit, even as critics split on what the film is really saying.
The setup
Bear, short for Baron, is played by Michael Johnston as the archetypal nice guy, a timid music store clerk who has quietly nursed a massive crush on his childhood friend and coworker Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette. After he breaks a novelty toy called the One Wish Willow to win her heart, the wish comes true. Then it comes true too completely. The intelligent, sarcastic woman he knows is replaced by a volatile double who loves him more than anything in the world, and the original Nikki is left suffering elsewhere while her copy cuddles up to him. The question the film asks is ugly: once Bear gets exactly what he wished for, what is he willing to excuse to keep it.
What works
The premise is a clean update of the monkey’s paw fable for the age of the lonely hearts group chat. Forbes noted critics praising its “deviously crowd pleasing” and “skillfully amusing” take on the trope, and the Rotten Tomatoes consensus calls it “dauntingly disturbing while also skillfully amusing and thrilling.” Barker, a 26 year old former YouTuber, builds dread through escalation rather than jump scares, and Navarrette does the heavy lifting, playing both a believable young woman and a frightening supernatural presence. The grotesque imagery is unflinching, and the film earns its hardness by refusing to let its characters off easy.
What divides critics
The most serious critique comes from Roger Ebert’s review, which argues the film is “cruel and unforgiving” but also blind to its own complicity. By telling the story almost entirely from Bear’s point of view, the movie risks treating Nikki as a prize to be won rather than a full person. Ebert notes that Bear is “in love with an image of her, which is the true obsession,” and that the film frames her possession as something close to consent as long as it benefits him. The review also points out that even Nikki’s friends, Sarah among them, end up prioritizing access to a man over solidarity with a woman in crisis. The film is unambiguous about what it is confronting, Ebert writes, but it “risks sidelining her ordeal” by never letting Bear’s worst moment breathe long enough to land.
A film about the wrong kind of love
Seen through the lens of obsession as a psychological pattern, the movie is sharper than it first appears. Bear’s fixation is not harmonious passion but the obsessive kind: an uncontrollable urge aimed at an idea of a person, not the person. The wish does not create the obsession, it removes the friction that was the only thing keeping it in check. That is the horror. The supernatural element is almost a mercy compared to the human truth underneath, that some love is really possession wearing a friendly face. The film’s nastiest trick is making the audience complicit, because we are invited to root for the wish right up until we see what it costs someone else.
The verdict
Obsession is a nasty, funny, genuinely unsettling debut level feature that punches well above its budget. Audiences have embraced it, and critics mostly agree it is one of 2026’s strongest horror entries. The reservation is real but narrow: a film this clear eyed about toxic longing might have been braver about who it hurts to center the story on the person actually suffering. As a piece of pop horror it earns the hype. As a comment on obsession, it knows exactly what it is doing, and that is what makes it stick.
Based on the Rotten Tomatoes listing and Critics Consensus, Forbes’ box office and RT score report (May 2026), and Roger Ebert’s review of Obsession (Curry Barker, 2026). The film runs 109 minutes, rated R, released in US theaters May 15, 2026 via Focus Features with Blumhouse.
