Obsession (2026) Review

Curry Barker, a YouTube sketch comedian, made his second feature for about 750,000 dollars in 26 days around Los Angeles, and it plays like a sketch premise pushed to its ugliest conclusion. Michael Johnston's Bear is too timid to tell Nikki (Inde Navarrette) how he feels, so he snaps a wishing toy from a crystal shop instead, and gets a girlfriend who watches him sleep, tapes the door shut and stands in one spot all day waiting for him. The joke underneath is Bear's self-pity as much as Nikki's horror.

Navarrette switches between a funny, ordinary young woman and something wrong inside her own body, and her screams and vocal changes were performed without computer effects. Barker and cinematographer Taylor Clemons frame scenes dead center with too much headroom, so even quiet moments feel off, and the sound design does the rest. Not everyone bought it: Odie Henderson in The Boston Globe said it plays like the old stand-up routine about crazy girlfriends.

After a Midnight Madness premiere in Toronto, Focus paid 14 to 15 million dollars, a Toronto record for a genre film, and since its May 15, 2026 release it has grossed 519 million dollars worldwide. Critics agreed, 93 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 77 on Metacritic.