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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   1581 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for July 3, 2026

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I Saw Obsession (For Real This Time)

So I saw Obsession (2026) for real this time, and the discourse around it makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills. All the rape/incel stuff is just projection, it’s clearly intended to be a metaphor for a codependent relationship between people who just aren’t good for each other.

The actual sequence with Bear wishing on the willow is obviously supposed to be a metaphor for Nikki genuinely latching onto Bear in a time of unique emotional vulnerability, not a rape scene.

The problems in the relationship don’t start until a few months later, when Bear begins to pull away. And unfortunately in his years of idealized pining, he didn’t notice that Nikki actually has pretty serious mental problems. There are major hints that Nikki was molested by her father (everyone in the discourse just seems to not pick up on that) and that she had a serious mental breakdown in high school: Bear misunderstands the “Freaky Nikki” nickname as implying that she was slutty, when it actually arose due to her genuinely bizarre behavior. Pay close attention to the way she acts before the willow. Her affect is already a little bit off (glib charm suddenly snapping into hostility). Ian’s concern isn’t just him being a cad, I think he knows Nikki has serious issues.

And Bear is a weak-willed drip incapable of handling Nikki’s worst impulses. She feels simultaneously suffocated and abandoned by him. The whole joke about the cat is Bear IS the cat, he got into something he didn’t understand and now he’s screwed. He’s certainly an ugly person inside, but not because he’s a bitter resentful incel. He’s just needy and narcissistic, and he’s willing to look the other way on Nikki’s mental breakdown way too long because she validates him. Then when he realizes the full gravity of her problems, he tries to dip out on her. The central thesis of the film is directly stated by the demonic phone operator in a line that everyone misses, right after it breaks the news that the curse is permanent:

“Huh, sounds like you have a moral obligation to be there for her....”

Bear’s sin isn’t getting Nikki into the relationship, it’s that he did it to only to validate himself and not because he really knew or loved Nikki, or wanted to take care of her.

Everyone seems to put a lot of weight on the scene where Nikki is talking in her sleep, but she’s constantly saying a lot of bizzare and inconsistent stuff both before and after the willow.

I really don’t know what the internet is smoking on this one.

In terms of a quality review I think it’s one of the best films I’ve seen in a long time. Vicious things happen in it, but it’s shot through with tragedy in a way that makes it feel very surprisingly humane. It’s not coldly sociopathic like Saw or Evil Dead. I think it’s no accident that the ending is a very on the nose reference to Romeo and Juliet. I may have been pretty rough on the two leads above, but pretty much every single character in the film is really likable and when bad things happen to them it’s genuinely sad. Even demon-Nikki is genuinely heartbreaking.

I saw it perhaps a month ago, and it was great.

I don't think I had ever seen a horror movie in theaters as I can't suspend my disbelief otherwise it being scary is unsettling. In this case I took it more like a dark comedy and I laughed a lot. I don't think I was the only one as the theater was pretty loud.
They've been making short youtube skits for a few years, somewhat like a Key and Peele duo but without the impression that the joke needs to be stretched out for a mandatory length. Some of my favourites ones : Father who stepped up
Santa canvasser
Ghost roommate, one of the examples of horror comedies they've been doing

Also I haven't really seen any political statements they've put out but they never seem to signal, of the type that is so common 'oh I'm the bad guy but I would never say the n-word'. The one issue I have is the overuse of swear-words which makes them hard to watch around kids.

In the movie, that one very violent scene, at first I laughed a little bit because of the shock 'oh here we go the funny predictable thing is happening' then I was like 'oh wow that's horrifying' and then it kept going on for slightly longer and I was cracking up again because it became comedic again, like a parody of Wonderwoman 'look I'm acting' kind of characters. Another aspect is that it's specifically more shocking/funny as most violent media usually avoids this kind of scenes (with a not so subtle DV reference), so they went out of their way to be edgy and still made millions.

All the interactions with customer service were great as well, as that's one of their favorite theme (somebody says something unhinged during a mundane interaction and it slides out of control).

It would have been interesting if it had been actually ambiguous whether the magic device actually worked or not. Maybe she's just crazy like that. It's probably been done before.

The actual story didn't matter that much to me. It reminds me of Falling Down in a way, normal character just goes batshit.

Pay close attention to the way she acts before the willow. Her affect is already a little bit off (glib charm suddenly snapping into hostility).

I read somewhere that, for the scene where Bear drives Nikki home (immediately before he uses the willow), they shot it twice: once with the actress given the direction that Nikki was romantically interested in Bear, and once with the direction that she only thought of him as a friend or perhaps a little brother. Then, they intercut between these two takes. (American Psycho did something similar in Willem Dafoe's first scene with Christian Bale.) I thought it was a clever way of representing Bear's uncertainty about whether it's a good idea to confess his attraction to her, but it also fits with the idea that Nikki is troubled.

The People vs. OJ Simpson also used that technique to good effect, layering takes where Cuba Gooding Jr. played OJ as a genuinely wronged innocent man and ones where he played him as contrite and guilty or mocking and smug.

I enjoyed the miniseries a great deal, although sadly I felt that Gooding was the weak link in the cast. The actor who played Johnnie Cochran was brilliant, and even Ross from Friends did okay.

I liked him for it because he captured the public image of OJ before the murders, of a very friendly and harmless guy. The guy that got turned down from Terminator for not being a convincing enough killer. So because of that, I didn’t mind that Gooding is physically completely unlike OJ. That said, it’s a shame they didn’t get Jonathan Majors, I think he could have pulled that disarming friendliness off while at least approximating OJ’s real build (he was a big guy).

OJ’s real build (he was a big guy).

Would there by chance be a specific demographic for which he was relatively large?

He was one of the most loved sports figures in America. He was a big for you, a big guy for me, a big guy for everyone really.

I'd suggest adding spoiler tags.

That said...

I kind of agree with you. I think the weakest part of the movie is her speaking in her sleep to make the concept of the "under-nikki" so explicit. It could have been more subtle.

I think the director would approve of your analysis, but I have to admit I don't know how you got the impression that Nikki's father abused her.

I meant to tell you, I went to see it partially on your rec.

I'm glad I did - probably one of the best shot and mastered movies in recent memory.

Though I have to say: I have lost my appetite for horror. It did fuck me up and make it hard to sleep. Based on the expressions of others in the theater, I was not alone.

I'm trying to figure out how much of the main actress's facial expressions were augmented with CGI, because I feel like very few people have that range.

It did fuck me up and make it hard to sleep.

I also suffered a few nights of insomnia after seeing the film, due to intense feelings of tfw no qt-3.1415968 BPD goth-Latina gf

Same: the whole time I was watching the movie I was thinking fellas, hear me out.

If you mean the cute exaggerated frowny face, some people can just do that. I can do that.

Example from Red Letter Media

That's another thing I liked about the movie. There are parts where she's, like, creeping in the shadows and her face looks fucked up, but if you look at behind-the-scenes photos it's just, like, super simple makeup on her. It's just the way they've lit it, keeping her in shadow.

Example from Your Movie Sucks

They play the footage backwards to give her a very unnatural movement at several points in the film.

There's one shot where she was clearly walking forwards and they played it backwards, but her voice was speaking forward—they didn't, like, reverse her voice or anything.

lewd actress

Interesting typo. But my understanding is that CG was used very sparingly as the budget didn't permit it, and a lot of the weird facial expressions were actually achieved using makeup, which isn't very obvious owing to the dim lighting. For example, having the actress close her eyes and paint eyes on her eyelids.

Oops, fixed!

I don’t know how you got the impression that Nikki’s father abused her

  1. The fact that Ian and Sarah both take it as a given that Nikki hates her father so much that she wouldn’t really care if he was dying of cancer.

  2. The fact that Nikki hates her father but still can’t bring herself to stop caring for him, which she expresses through the made up cancer diagnosis.

  3. The part where Nikki goes on a demonic rant implying that she’s sexually attracted to Bear because he reminds her of her brother, who her father regularly forced her have sex with. She dresses it up like a fairy tale, but when you combine it with everything else it seems pretty damning.

she’s sexually attracted to Bear because he reminds her of her brother, who her father regularly forced her have sex with

I must have missed that detail of the fairytale. Fair point.

I would also add that there are a lot of hints that the death of Bear’s grandmother hit him very hard and he hasn’t really gotten over it.

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