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‘Obsession’s Original Ending Would Have Destroyed the Entire Movie
Curry Barker‘s Obsession has been the talk of the horror world the past few weeks. The YouTube filmmaker, who first got the attention of genre fans with Milk & Serial, has broken out in a huge way with his feature directorial debut. Obsession stars Michael Johnston as Bear, a shy young man who uses a One Wish Willow to wish for his crush, Nikki (Inde Navarrette), to love him more than anyone else. Bear gets what he wished for … but with terrifying consequences. Obsession is earning praise as one of the best horror movies in ages, but this is no fun fright fest. What Nikki goes through is absolutely heartbreaking, and had Barker stuck with his original ending, it would have altered the impact Obsession had with moviegoers.
What Is ‘Obsession’ About?
Curry Barker got the idea for Obsession from a “Treehouse of Horror” episode of The Simpsons. However, while it’s hilarious to watch Homer use a monkey’s paw to wish for a turkey sandwich, there’s nothing funny about Obsession. Barker’s film lives in darkness and goes for the unexpected at every turn.
Bear, the shy “nice guy,” should be the hero. And, for a bit, he is, until he wishes for his co-worker, Nikki, to love him more than anyone else in the world. Just like that, the confident, independent Nikki becomes obsessed with Bear. Rather than looking for a way to cancel his wish, Bear only wants to alter it. He doesn’t want to let Nikki go and still wants him to love her in the way he desires.
This makes Bear the true villain of the movie. And while Nikki is plenty scary, she is never the antagonist. This new form only wants to please and doesn’t know how. Meanwhile, the real Nikki is trapped, forced to inhabit this possessed body and only allowed to come out for a few seconds here and there. Nikki is a tragic figure, with more than a few scenes producing tears rather than screams.
Nikki Was Originally Going To Die at the End of ‘Obsession’
Going into the third act of Obsession, the thing that is Nikki sleeps in bed. With the entity at bay, the real Nikki takes over her body and begs Bear to kill her. He won’t do it. Bear is a coward, and he’s not ready to let go of his wish, despite the cost. In the wild finale, Sarah (Megan Lawless) and Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) are dead at Nikki’s hand. It’s only then that Bear is ready to take his own life to cancel the wish and save Nikki, who can come back the moment he dies. However, once more, Bear proves to be a coward and backs out, taking the gun out of his mouth and swallowing a bunch of pills instead. He quickly regrets that, as well, and starts an attempt to vomit them up before being stopped by the entity version of Nikki breaking a second One Wish Willow. Seconds later, he is dead, the real Nikki is back in her body, and the end credits roll as she screams. It’s chilling to the bone.
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In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the director revealed that his original ending went even further. Barker strongly considered giving the film a Romeo and Juliet-type finale where both characters die.
“We shot both; we shot this ending that you see in the movie, and we shot the ending where she ends it all. We had shot a ton of different versions of the official ending, the one that’s in the script, the one that I was excited about, and I was like, Okay, we’ll do one ending where [Nikki] survives, but we’ll just do one take of it, and then we’ll move on.“
‘Obsession’s Ending Is More Scary Because Nikki Lives
After shooting an alternate ending with Nikki surviving that Barker didn’t think he would use, he was talked into making it the actual ending by his father, screenwriter Jeff Barker.
“I just remember my dad and multiple people around me being like, ‘Dude, I think it’s way more disturbing if she just survives this thing.’ I was like, ‘Ah, you’re right.’ And so we switched it.”
In an interview with Collider, Inde Navarrette told Peri Nemiroff:
“She’s gonna sit with the grief.’ And also, at the same time, we’re following her this entire time. Curry was like, ‘No, we really want to sit with her.’ And that’s why we got the ending that we did.”
To watch Nikki make it so far through so much only to die would have been unbearable for the viewer and killed any rewatch potential. Nikki had to live. Usually, if the hero makes it out of a horror movie alive, that’s a happy ending. Not for Obsession. Sure, there’s a chance she’s strong enough to overcome what she’s gone through. Maybe this horrific experience will become the basis for the love story she dreams of writing. That’s a fantasy though. Nikki is not coming back from this. When she snaps back into her body, her face is not one of relief. Nikki is terrified, her eyes wide with extreme fear. She has seen things and been to places the audience doesn’t know about. There is no escape from such soul-destroying trauma.
Just as bad, all of Nikki’s friends are now dead because of her. Even if she could somehow find a way to live through this knowledge, no one will ever believe what really happened. In the eyes of the law, Nikki will be seen as a crazed killer. It’s off to prison for life, or at best, a psychiatric hospital. The movie ends on this poor woman’s pain pouring out of her. She is coming undone. Will she be okay? The viewer will never get a true answer, but we can already guess. Whatever awaits Nikki is pure, unimaginable hell, and that’s much worse than the finality of death.
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