‘Obsession’ TIFF 2025 Review: Witching, Glitching, Twitching 

Now that Feature First and I are officially press accredited at the Toronto International Film Festival, let me let you in on a bit of a trade secret I’ve learned in my time inside. A little industry in-the-know if you will, that we all talk about incessantly in the hallowed halls of the Hyatt but hide from you all out there:

Despite the recent boom in the genre, there aren’t really that many actual honest-to-God horror comedies.

Sure, there are plenty that do horror and comedy in the same film. There’s a lot of black comedies that veer into horror elements. There are more than enough suspense thrillers with a comedic bent on them. But very few accomplish the rare and difficult feat of doing both simultaneously. 

Think about it. Are you really scared when you watch Scream? Does Ready or Not make you afraid? Has any Samara Weaving movie really made your heart race (in that way)?

What makes Obsession, the debut feature from Curry Barker (a Youtube sketch comedian turned horror director), so refreshing is its incredible ability to be both hilarious and horrifying not just in the same movie or the same scene, but often in the same moment, in a way I don’t know if I have seen before (or at least since The Lighthouse). 

And it’s really something when you experience it in the moment. Your brain short-circuits in confusion on how to react to what’s on screen. A very real example of the Fight-Flight-Freeze response.

And it’s not unclear to understand why that happens. The distinction between laughing and screaming is a very thin one. The setup to a punchline and to a jumpscare are very similar. Jordan Peele famously stated that the difference between horror and comedy is the music. They are subversive genres that are built on creating and playing with tension, and then releasing it. It’s why romcoms and erotic thrillers work well too, it’s the same principle at work. 

It’s a fine line to walk. And Obsession toes the tightrope perfectly, in large part due to a pitch perfect performance from the film’s potential breakout star, Inde Navarrette.

Obsession’s premise is very simple. Boy (Bear, played by Michael Johnston) is friends with girl (Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette). Boy has crush on girl. Boy is too scared to admit feelings to girl. Boy makes wish with magical item for girl to love him. Wish comes true. Chaos ensues, Be careful what you wish for. Basically the same moral lesson and set-up as The Substance last year.

To be more specific, Bear uses a seemingly innocuous “One Wish Willow” novelty item to wish that his long time friend, crush and coworker Nikki will fall in love with him. He does this despite the fact that she clearly likes him too and would probably accept his offer of a date if he had the courage to ask her out.  But he wishes nevertheless and something seems to change inside of Nikki. They get together and seem happy for a while. But then, cue Obsession.

Predictably, the film hinges entirely on how effective the performance of Nikki is. And Navarrette is incredible, taking a role that could very easily become one-note and stale quickly and never misses a beat. It starts out subtle, as if she were possessed by a scheming spirit but then spirals into a wrecking ball. It’s an all-out breakthrough performance, physical, facial and vocal.

What makes her so entertaining and hilarious is how many different and varied ways she can pull off being unnerving and unsettling, she is the uncanny valley personified with incredibly expressive eyes (oddly reminiscent of Anya Taylor-Joy and Jenna Ortega) and a malleable smile she uses to great effect. When she throws subtlety out the window, the simultaneous effect of terror and laughter is magnified.

There’s a moment when she suffers a minor inconvenience and she lets out a wail which would sound like Bugs Bunny stubbing his toe, if it wasn’t just slightly unnatural in its tone. Conversely, there’s a scene where she creeps out of the corner of the frame in total darkness, illuminated only by her wide eyes and smile. It’s a textbook example of a sleep paralysis demon, and makes you freeze in fear, except for the fact that she’s slinking and sneaking about in a clear imitation of the Pink Panther and an expression on her face like that of the Pun Dog Meme.

This cartoon, malfunctioning doll-like quality to Nikki’s depiction is a clever one. It’s a 2-dimensionality that  stands in direct contrast to her character prior to the wish (a woman with a life, job, history, friends, family, crushes, secrets), now behaving much like a demonic Tim Robinson sketch character, pushing every social interaction to a mix of awkwardness and genuine concern.

The butt of these jokes is usually Bear, who Johnston plays well as the straight man (as in foil, like Jason Bateman in Arrested Development) to Nikki’s chaos. There’s a great sense of panic and desperation to him in nearly every scene, which originally plays as comedic, the classic trope of a guy desperately trying to navigate through not upsetting his girlfriend by saying the wrong thing. But as Nikki grows more obviously unstable, Bear has to confront and try to hide his own complicity in the situation, to himself and to his friends, and our sympathies towards him begin to twist, with that same panic and desperation reeking of cowardice. There’s a complexity I appreciate to the performance; he’s not a stereotype. Bear isn’t portrayed a total loser or creep or wasteyute (it’s TIFF), nor is he completely without sin or complication. He’s funny and likable but also easy to condemn. It also makes his obvious discomfort at the insanity Nikki puts him through that much more entertaining, despite the disquieting churn in your stomach, a sense of the tables being flipped and of a perverse justice (i.e. The Killing of A Sacred Deer).

I’ve mentioned before that Barker is a sketch comedian on YouTube, and that influence is apparent in how the most memorable scenes and the film overall seems constructed overall, as punchlines to bits. Barker thrives on the social awkwardness Nikki creates in public, and his punchlines come in the form of often brutal dark humour. I’m reminded of an observation I read on Weapons (the horror movie directed by former WKUK sketch member Zach Cregger, and which feels oddly reminiscent of Obsession in its plot), how the entire film is arguably a set-up to a single big laugh, its final scene. Similar things could be said about Obsession. As the film goes on, especially towards its ending, there may be too many of these punchlines jammed in, some of them feel a bit obvious and sometimes the “punchlines” feel cruel in a way that leaves you conflicted (very reminiscent of Black Mirror, which can be both good and bad). A lot of this is to be expected for a 25-year-old making his debut film; if anything, the film is way more polished than you’d expect from someone transitioning from YouTube. And I’m glad to say, the film doesn’t come off as edgy to me in a way it may sound by the way I’m describing it. There is an empathy and a sobering dread to what’s going on in the film. The way Barker is able to play with those feelings demonstrates him as a talented new voice in the genre.

I’m so excited for the next generation of filmmakers, my generation, slowly starting to emerge and make their point of view known. Curry Barker and I are the same age. Another favourite sketch YouTuber of mine, Alex Ullom, resurfaced after years without posting as, you guessed it, a horror director. His debut film, It Ends, received its digital distribution via Letterboxd’s new video rental service. Those who grew up constantly connected to the internet via umbilical cord are coming of age to create their own works of art influenced by that lens, their voices magnified by the medium itself. I find it disconcerting, however, that horror seems to be the genre of choice (Read Jane Schoenbrun’s “Why I Spent Months Making An Archival Documentary about The Slenderman”).

Obsession was one of my favourite movies of 2025. I spend months waiting for TIFF to arrive, weeks researching movies and planning potential schedules, but every year it seems to me that my favourite film of the festival is one I don’t see coming, one I barely had on my radar from a director I’d never heard of. Last year it was Dead Mail (see my review here). Obsession was not a film I had planned to see until the evening of its screening. I am inspired by the festival’s continued ability to surprise and horrify me.

See you in September.

Obsession stars Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless and Andy Richter. It had its world premiere at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival. The film was acquired by Focus Features and will release theatrically in May 2026.

Thanks for reading this Obsession review. For more reviews, stay tuned here at Feature First.