You know how they say that everyone has a book in them? Well, here at Empire we’re starting to believe that every YouTuber has a horror movie in them. The RackaRacka boys have had Talk To Me and Bring Her Back, Chris Stuckmann’s got Shelby Oaks, Markiplier made Iron Lung, and Kane Parsons’ Backrooms is well on its way. And now, just to further affirm our theory, Curry Barker (of online comedy duo That’s A Bad Idea and viral found footage sensation ‘Milk & Serial’ fame) is getting in on the action with Blumhouse chiller Obsession, a monkey’s paw style horror movie about a young man (Michael Johnston) who makes a wish for his crush (Inde Navarette) to fall in love with him. What could possibly go wrong? Check out the trailer below for a few ideas;
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: no matter how much you really, really like someone, never break a ‘One Wish Willow’ and spend said wish on asking for your crush to love you more than anything in the world. That’s just begging for trouble — as poor Bear (Johnston) soon finds out after doing precisely that to win the affections of Nikki (Navarette). Sure, there’s some hopeful early signs — a cuddle on the sofa here, a smooch there — but as this latest Obsession trailer shows, it really isn’t long before Nikki’s all-consuming love for Bear starts yielding bloody, potentially even deadly consequences. And whaddayaknow, there’s no returns either: as an ominous voice tells the lovelorn lad over the phone when he asks if Nikki’s “stuck like this forever”, “well yeah… as long as you live.” Yikes!
Already a People’s Choice award runner-up at TIFF last year, and currently sitting pretty with a not too shabby 97% rating on the old Tomatometer, Barker’s movie, with its inventive contemporary take on a tried-and-true horror story archetype, has no shortage of hype behind it. We look forward to finding out whether Obsession is a genre lovers’ wish come true — or a nightmare of an altogether less welcome kind — when it hits UK cinemas on 15 May.