Horror films really aren't my thing. But I do have a taste in the genre in something a little unconventional, twisted or with a psychological dimension. And the fact
Obsession (Curry Barker)
was gaining critical gravitas - and let's face it there was nothing else worth seeing at the Bijou - I checked it out. It starts out well, with our hero Baron (Michel Johnston) expressing his unfulfilled romantic quest for co-worker Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to a pal at a diner. The friend says go for her. They nervously go out on a kind of date. And as he's dropping her off she wants to make one thing perfectly clear: she just wants to be friends. Which of course depresses Baron aka "Bear". But he had visited a magic store and bought a cheap One Wish Willow, a stupid kids game where you're supposedly guaranteed your wish if you break the stick in half. (I love the guy at the call centre.) Well...Bear breaks it and suddenly Nikki turns around and walks back to his car. She's miraculously, unexplainedly, now completely enthralled and seriously does wants a romantic relationship with our hero. So the damn kids thing does work! We've seen this plot or theme before. It most notably brought back memories of the 1987 classic
Fatal Attraction (Adrian Lyne) with Michael Douglas and Glenn Close. Only
Obsession is for the Gen Z crowd. The film kept my attention but it's basically one dimensional - a straight ahead horror flick with some good acting especially from Navarrette. There's some pretty horrific scenes, amid a few laughs, but most people will probably be able to handle them.
As per this movie, I'd booked a seat online only to arrive and find I was right next to a couple of chatty guys. So I moved up a row to an empty seat. A couple of seats to my left were a couple, yakking away and looking at their cellphones. I turned my head - twice - and stared point blank at them for a few seconds. The woman turned and saw that I was staring. Perhaps it quieted them. Then another couple, a couple of seats to my right, started their banter. So I got up and moved, all the way down to a place I never sit - midway up and exact centre. There was blissfully no other person in the row and none immediately in the row above. There have been reports this summer of blockbuster films like
The Odyssey, The Invite and even
Obsession, drawing droves back to bricks and mortar cinemas. And I cheer it. The problem is that folks still like to chatter. Is it because they're so used to watching movies at home that they've transplanted their living rooms to the theatre, and to hell with other moviegoers? Or is it just general self-obsessed rudeness? Probably some of both.
