One Wish, One Price: Obsession Is a Triumph of Young Horror

Curry Barker’s Obsession plays like a cautionary lullaby for the terminally lovestruck: tender in its opening notes, intoxicating in its promise, and then quietly, mercilessly, revealing the rot beneath the wish. 

The premise is deceptively simple, almost folkloric in its elegance: a hopeless romantic, aching for connection, breaks the mysterious ‘One Wish Willow’ to win his crush’s heart. 

And when the wish lands exactly as intended, the film begins its real trick, not the granting of desire, but the slow unveiling of what desire costs when it’s taken rather than earned.

What makes Obsession so surprisingly refreshing is how confidently it understands that horror doesn’t need to scream to be heard. 

Barker leans into the genre’s most reliable weapons-sound, shadow, implication, and negative space-and then uses them with a restraint that feels rare, especially from a debut. 

He doesn’t overexplain. He doesn’t smother the audience with forced boo-beats. Instead, he invites you to participate: to listen harder, to stare deeper into the corners of the frame, to imagine the shape of what’s coming before it arrives. 

That approach doesn’t just create suspense; it creates investment. The viewer becomes complicit, and that’s where the creepiness really lives.

At the core, though, the film’s greatest strength is that its horror is emotionally legible. 

Barker’s screenplay is top-notch because it doesn’t treat its protagonist like an idiot and it doesn’t treat his crush like a prop. 

The central character is introduced as a true hopeless romantic, overwhelmed, intoxicated by possibility, genuinely convinced that love is just one decisive action away. 

The writing captures that youthful urgency: the belief that if you can just unlock the right outcome, you can skip the uncertainty, the awkwardness, the risk of rejection, and go straight to the intimacy. 

That impulse is painfully relatable, and that’s why it’s so disturbing when he crosses the line.

Because Obsession is brave enough to call the act what it is: taking advantage of someone without considering the consequences. 

The wish is not just a supernatural device; it’s a metaphor for coercion, entitlement, and the seductive fantasy that another person’s agency is an obstacle you’re allowed to remove if you’re suffering enough. 

And that’s what makes the film an eye-opener for young audiences. 

It’s not preaching, but it’s clear-eyed about modern romance: the loneliness, the longing to be chosen, and the gnawing despair of feeling invisible in a world where connection seems both hyper-available and strangely impossible.

That generational undertone, the hunger to be loved and the panic that you might never find something real, gives the movie thematic weight beyond its scares. 

Barker doesn’t just know horror. He knows why horror works right now, for people his age: because dread is already in the background of their daily lives. The film’s darkness doesn’t feel pasted on; it feels like a natural extension of the emotional environment the characters live in. The supernatural element becomes an amplifier, not a distraction.

And then there’s the tonal surprise: 

Obsession is often satisfying in a way that’s hard to engineer. It’s creepy, sometimes very creepy, but it’s also punctuated with moments of humour, intentional or otherwise, that actually help the experience rather than undermine it. 

That’s a tricky balance. 

Bad films accidentally become funny because they lose control. 

Here, even when the laughter comes from discomfort or irony, it still feels like the movie’s spell holds. The humour becomes a pressure valve, just enough air to keep the dread from turning monotonous, before the story tightens its grip again.

The most jaw-dropping aspect is the sheer assurance behind it all. Despite his youth, Barker crafts a debut that feels brilliantly authentic, mature, grounded in realistic emotional behaviour and recognisable relationship dynamics. 

There’s nothing fake about the romantic yearning at the start, and nothing cartoonish about the consequences that follow. That authenticity is what elevates the film from impressive for his age to something much stronger: a definitive triumph that establishes him as a filmmaker to watch.

If Obsession is any indication, Barker’s future with the genre (hopefully) won’t be a casual flirtation; it’ll be a long-term love affair. 

He understands the mechanics, yes, but more importantly, he understands the audience: what we fear, what we hide from ourselves, and what we’re capable of doing when loneliness turns into justification. 

That insight, the ability to translate a modern emotional truth into cinematic dread, is the mark of someone with real staying power.

Obsession isn’t just a strong first horror film. It’s a landmark for young aspirant filmmakers today because it proves something essential: you don’t need excess to make horror hit. 

You need clarity of theme, discipline of craft, and the courage to let the audience feel the terror rather than simply witness it.

Showing in cinemas from Friday, 15 May.

-Dirk Lombard Fourie