Obsession Part 2: Bear, PLEASE Lock In!

So where were we? Oh yes. Bear had just gotten exactly what he asked for. Nikki loved him more than anyone else in the world, and almost immediately the whole thing started feeling horribly wrong.

This is where Barker’s directing really starts showing off because he somehow manages to make the most normal things uncomfortable. Nikki will stare at Bear for just a little longer than she should, or hold a smile on her face until it starts looking unnatural. Sometimes she’s literally just standing there and somehow that’s enough to make you uneasy. Nothing huge has even happened yet, but you can feel that something is off. That’s the kind of horror I love because anybody can blast some violent violin sound over somebody opening a cupboard and make me jump. Okay cool, you startled me. Obsession actually wants you sitting there feeling uncomfortable.

Meanwhile, Bear is watching this girl’s entire personality change in front of him and doing absolutely nothing useful with the information. She’s staring at him strangely, becoming possessive almost overnight, behaving in ways that don’t even resemble the Nikki he knows, and every now and then it seems like another version of her is trying to push its way through. My brother in Christ, how many signs do you need? This woman is moving like a corrupted save file and you’re just going along with it.

Now in Bear’s defense (and I hate that I even have to defend him), I can understand why he doesn’t immediately assume the little wooden wish thing actually worked. If I bought some random trinket for 10 bucks and wished for ten million Namibian Dollars, I wouldn’t exactly be waiting for my bank to call me the following morning. So initially, his confusion makes sense. But eventually, there are too many things happening for him to keep pretending this is just Nikki suddenly deciding she likes him.

Ian eventually tells Bear that Nikki lied about her dad having cancer, which should have been the moment everything clicked into place. Remember, she only told him that story because he initially rejected her when she asked to come home with him. So now Bear knows she lied, he knows her personality changed immediately after the wish and he knows she has been behaving increasingly strange ever since. At this point, sir, perhaps we should revisit the cursed wooden object you used five minutes before all of this started?

Bear confronts Nikki about her dad and she completely malfunctions. Her expression changes, her body language changes and she starts spiraling right in front of him. It’s one of those scenes where you’re watching and thinking surely THIS is finally going to be enough. Apparently not. He stays.

And this is where my sympathy for Bear really starts evaporating because there comes a point where “I didn’t know” stops working as an excuse. He may not understand exactly what the One Wish Willow did to Nikki, but he knows something happened. He can see that this girl is not behaving like herself and instead of stopping to figure out what is happening to her, he keeps enjoying the fact that she finally wants him.

That’s what makes Bear such a frustrating character. He’s selfish in a way that feels uncomfortably believable. He wants this fantasy so badly that as long as he can keep convincing himself everything is okay, he doesn’t have to think too hard about what might be happening to Nikki.

And I think that’s one of the nastiest things Barker does with the story. The wish didn’t suddenly install all these qualities into Bear. That desperation to be loved by Nikki was already there. The wish just gave him the opportunity to finally have what he had been fantasising about, and once he got it, we got to see how much he was willing to overlook in order to keep it.

Then one night Bear wakes up and Nikki is standing in the corner of the room watching him sleep. Absolutely not. I’m sorry but the lease is hers now. Keep the furniture, keep the WiFi, keep my clothes if you want them. If I wake up at three in the morning and somebody is standing motionless in the dark staring at me with those dead eyes, I’m finding a new home before sunrise. Bear’s response? “Please stop.” PLEASE STOP? Brother, she is not your little cousin asking if you have games on your phone. We have moved beyond “please stop.” This is supernatural clinginess.

The following morning Nikki packs him lunch and acts like everything is perfectly normal, except Bear notices the front door has been duct taped shut. The visual here is so simple, but I love it. Nikki is basically just standing there smiling while Bear is looking at the tape on the door, and somehow the whole house suddenly feels contaminated. Barker doesn’t overdo it. He doesn’t need Nikki crawling across the ceiling or some demon appearing behind her. He gives you enough time to look at her standing there and realise how deeply wrong the situation has become.

Bear eventually manages to leave for work, and once again he has people around him who could actually help. Sarah is there. Ian is there. These are his friends. He could sit them down and explain everything from the beginning, including the wish, but that would require admitting that he caused this whole mess in the first place. So instead he keeps lying, dodging questions and pretending he has the situation under control. Then he bites into the sandwich Nikki packed for him and starts wondering why the thing tastes like elephant knees and pickled lemur nose. Turns out Nikki put pieces of Sandy, his dead cat, inside the sandwich.

Nah.

First of all, REST IN PEACE Sandy because this cat has genuinely received some of the worst post death treatment I’ve ever seen in cinema. Bear barely mourned him and now this poor animal has been turned into lunch meat. That’s generational disrespect. But the sandwich is also important because Bear finally gets something he can’t easily explain away. Whatever has happened to Nikki has escalated way beyond her being overly attached or acting strangely. This woman just fed you your own cat. We have entered a different tax bracket of crazy.

So Bear finally gets in his car and calls the customer service number for the One Wish Willow, which is still one of the funniest ideas in the whole movie to me. Imagine having to explain this situation to customer support. “Thank you for calling One Wish Willow. If your wish has ruined your life, please stay on the line.” The funniest and most infuriating thing about the call is that Bear initially asks if he can alter the wish. ALTER IT. This GOOF still isn’t asking how to completely undo it. He wants adjustments. Apparently we’re calling supernatural tech support for a software update.

And this is where Bear really starts losing me… because the operator eventually explains that the wish lasts for as long as he is alive. When I heard that I immediately thought, well… there you go. There’s your answer. But obviously we still have an entire movie left and unfortunately we are dealing with Bear, a man who has spent the last hour treating good decisions like they’re trying to sell him insurance. Then the operator lets him hear the real Nikki…

This scene is actually heartbreaking because until now, we’ve mostly been dealing with this Willow version of her. The smiling, obsessive, terrifying version that follows Bear everywhere. But underneath all of that, Nikki is still conscious. She knows what is happening to her and she’s basically trapped inside her own body watching it happen.

Hearing her scream for help completely changed the situation for me. Because now Bear knows. There is no more guessing. There is no more pretending Nikki simply became obsessed with him overnight. The actual Nikki is trapped somewhere underneath all of this and she is terrified….And Bear hangs up the phone. Sir?

You have just listened to this woman screaming from inside her own mind and we’re disconnecting the call?

Then we get to the boys night scene, which might be one of my favourite parts of the entire movie because nobody in that room knows what the hell is going on. Nikki suddenly starts reciting this Hansel and Gretel poem and everybody is looking around confused. Ian doesn’t understand it, Sarah doesn’t understand it, Bear doesn’t understand it and neither did I at first.

Later you realise that it’s Nikki trying to communicate through whatever tiny bit of control she still has. She’s trying to remind Bear about their relationship and basically tell him that she’s always viewed him like family. The real Nikki is fighting for her life inside there, trying to send this man clues, and unfortunately she has chosen a recipient with the observational skills of a goldfish.

Eventually Nikki manages to break through properly for a few seconds. She smashes the bottle against her own head and starts screaming, and everybody in the room immediately realises something is seriously wrong.

Bear’s reaction bothered me so much because he almost looks embarrassed. Sarah and Ian are watching their friend completely fall apart and Bear seems more worried about how the entire situation looks than what is actually happening to Nikki.

This is around the point where I realised the supernatural part of the story isn’t even what bothers me most anymore. I’m watching this man slowly understand what his wish has done to somebody he supposedly cares about, and he still keeps finding ways to centre himself.

Then they get home and Bear somehow manages to produce one of the most revealing lines in the entire movie. He asks Willow Nikki if she can “just act like the real Nikki.” Excuse me?

So after everything you have seen, your solution is basically, “Could you imitate her a little better?” Bear has spent years imagining this perfect relationship with Nikki, but now that he finally has a version of her who is completely devoted to him, he also wants her to behave exactly like the girl he originally fell for. He wants the personality, the face, the friendship, the attraction, all of it, except apparently Nikki’s own choice in the matter.

THAT is where the title started hitting differently for me. Obsession.

BEAR is obsessed with NIKKI. On’Wish’ Nikki is obsessed with Bear. Everybody watching the movie seems to have become obsessed with arguing about Bear, and now here I am writing three whole parts about this damn movie, so apparently Barker got all of us. Then, Willow Nikki completely crashes out.

There’s this shot where she’s moving in and out of the light and this huge shadow keeps stretching across her face, and I remember thinking somebody behind that camera absolutely knew what they were doing. There isn’t some massive CGI sequence happening. It’s lighting, movement, framing and performance, yet the scene looks terrifying.

She basically tells Bear exactly what is going to happen if he tries to leave her again and, finally, you can see it starting to sink in. Every decision he has made since the wish is closing in on him. Then Sarah texts him. She tells Bear to meet her outside or she’s coming into the house.

Immediately I was like, oh no. Because by now Bear knows exactly what Nikki is capable of and he knows Sarah walking through that door is a terrible idea. So he waits until Willow Nikki is asleep and tries to sneak outside. Before he can go, he hears Nikki whisper his name. And suddenly she is different. You can immediately tell the real Nikki has managed to come through again. The creepy smile disappears. Her voice changes. For a few seconds she’s herself, and she tells Bear she doesn’t have much time because the other Nikki is asleep. Then she says, “Please kill me.”

That scene genuinely got me. Imagine being conscious inside your own body while something else controls it. You can see yourself hurting people, hear yourself saying things you would never say and you are completely powerless to stop any of it. Nikki has been trapped in there this entire time, and now she’s using one of the few moments she has control to beg Bear to make it stop.

At this point he knows everything he needs to know; The wish worked. Nikki is trapped. He knows she is suffering. He is fully aware of what will end it. And after this woman looks him in the face and begs him to please end what is happening by killing her, Bear responds with: “What’s so bad about being with me?”

…..

I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THIS MAN.

We are ending Part 2 right there because I genuinely need you to sit with that sentence before we continue.

Catch you in Part 3.

Same review. Final disaster.