What makes the perfect monster? In Curry Barker’s Obsession (2026), the scariest threat might not be supernatural at all. It may be something disturbingly familiar hiding inside love itself.
⚠️ Full spoiler warning: This video discusses major characters, key events, and the ending of Obsession.
In this episode of Afterworld Movie Nights, we take a closer look at how Obsession turns love into possession, tenderness into violence, and ordinary human desire into something truly monstrous.
What makes Nikki so terrifying? Why does the film avoid the comforting rhythm of shot/reverse-shot? What does the wishing willow reveal about superstition and desire? And why do we choose to watch horror movies when they’re designed to make us uncomfortable?
Along the way, we explore:
• Nikki as both a victim and an aggressor
• Baudelaire’s L’Héautontimorouménos and the figure of the self-tormentor
• Noël Carroll’s theory of the horror monster
• The film’s use of absence, stillness, off-screen space, and blocked time
• The ambiguous ending and the question of responsibility
• Stephen King, horror as an “agent of the norm,” and the strange pleasure of feeling scared from a safe distance
Maybe the perfect monster doesn’t need fangs, claws, or supernatural powers.
Maybe it just needs to love too much.
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