Obsession (2026)

published 2026-08-22 | tags: #backlog #movies

I saw Obsession a few nights ago and I really enjoyed it.

It was intense, I had to pause a few times, but over all I was really impressed with the tight story, incredible acting, and how much they got away with on such a low budget.

Since then I've consumed some analysis videos on YouTube, specifically "Bear's wish wasn't granted - it's worse than that" by Edgier Than Thou, which made an interesting claim about how the One Wish Willow works. Unlike every other analysis that assumes it's a Monkey's Paw sort of thing, where your words are twisted to result in the worst possible wish fulfillment, Ediger asserts that your wish is fulfilled exactly as you intended, regardless of your words. This tracks with the movie where Bear's friend wishes for a billion dollars and just gets it. No gotcha, nobody died, it's immediate, it's exactly what he was wishing for.

What I like about this mechanic is that it subverts the expectation of a wish/geneie movie. Instead of the goal to be to trick the genie, or use precise legalese, or even not to play, the trick is to just wish for something good. The horror of the movie doesn't come because Bear was unhappy with his life, or because he made a wish, it's that he wished for something inherently problematic and cursed. If he had wished for a billion dollars he likely would have gotten it, but because he wished for somebody to love him to an unhealthy way that sacrifices who they are, chaos ensues.

I'm not sure why this was such a fun topic for me to think about. For some reason changing how wish granting works to be based on intention instead of wording, or always being bad regardless of how detailed you are, it's really cool! It breaks the usual tropes of the genre and allows for much deeper story telling to occur, not just how to lawyer up and write a good wish, but to actually get at the heart of the genre and make good wishes! It feels like taking some "taken for granted" part of the genre, like how rewind in video games was always a finite resource, and removing that constraint like Braid did, and seeing what falls out.

It's still just a theory, but I really like it and going forward if I ever tell a genie/wish story I'll probably use this version of the mechanism.

It's a very well constructed movie with a nearly perfect ending -- you know for a horror movie.