Obsession

Neutral—First off, I do want to put a disclaimer that I do not recommend this film to anyone. Especially Christ followers, whether they be seasoned or beginning. Especially beginners. There are some very heavy things in here that are very disturbing and you will not stop seeing in your head for months.

That said, I don’t disagree with you main review. I do want to attack this from a different angle in saying that the glorification of certain things in this movie is not apparent. What we see is the negativity and a constant depressive atmosphere over crystals and wish making. We don’t ever see anyone happily redemptive over “One Wish Willow” or crystals or any new age practice. For that I can appreciate. Whether it was Curry Barker‘s intent or not. Nothing New Age can satisfy. Only superficially lure, and temporarily make feel better Satanically.

This leads me into my next point. This world is dripping with temporary, superficial, and emotionally driven relationships. Mostly selfish in a sense that people try to get what they want out of each other instead of giving and being in a God imaged covenant. This movie presents a dark cautionary tale, albeit a violent and bloody one metaphorically and physically of that. I’ve heard people change their views on how they feel about their significant other after watching it. Or at least be introspective in the case of if they are using their partner as an emotional dispensing vending machine.

I could definitely go further into each of these. But I’ll wrap it up in saying that once again the acting was incredible from everyone, especially Inde Navarette. And the fact that it was made for just $750,000 was impressive. But I’ll end with saying I continue to not recommend this movie just because of its nature and the depressive cloud of negative forces that hang with it.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Very Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4½

Negative—I wasn’t originally going to write about this film. I figured that the already existing reviews would be more than efficient, and that my comments would just restate what was already said. But, unfortunately, none of the reviews that I’ve read actually mention the biggest and most glaring problem this film has; a problem that Christians should be extremely wary of.

Many of these reviews focus mainly on the occultism storyline, and how that’s dangerous, and how people should be strongly cautioned, and not mess with demonic things. And I agree completely with that. But there’s one little problem with simply leaving it at that in a review. And what exactly is that problem? Well, the problem is that the movie actually agrees. It’s a cautionary tale. At no point is occultism presented as desirable or even the least bit good.

Despite the strong stigma, the horror genre is not necessarily sinful. I am a horror author myself (though I’ve published only a small amount as of this writing). My stories contain dark imagery, frightening moments, and yes, even witchcraft. I do not intend to promote sin by writing these, but rather to write compelling stories where good triumphs over evil, occultism is presented in a very negative light and has terrible consequences for those who delve into it, demons are always portrayed as unsympathetic villains, etc. Keep in mind, in every story (not just horror or occult stories), the bad guys are going to do bad things. It has to happen. If there’s no conflict, there’s no story. Likewise, even the good guys might make grave mistakes sometimes. The thing to watch out for is not whether or not a character is portrayed as sinning, but whether or not the story condones that sin. This has historically been how fiction has been viewed, and a good example using a story with occultism is Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where the protagonist’s endless desire to actively bring to truth the prophecy of occult witches leads to his downfall and death. Even the Bible itself includes times where people used witchcraft, which means that, if the inclusion of occultism by itself disqualifies a story, then the Bible is disqualified. Of course, this is ridiculous, but it’s the logical conclusion if you go that route.

The movie Obsession does *not* portray occultism in a positive light. Quite the opposite. The protagonist buys a magic macguffin and makes a wish on it, and this wish comes true, but not in the way he wanted. This is how Satan works. Satan always twists things, and witchcraft has dire consequences. Later in the film, the protagonist tries desperately to reverse his wish… via more occultism. First he calls the number written on the box that the macguffin came in, and is told that the wish is permanent until he dies. Then he tries to buy more of the same macguffin and use them, but the macguffins are a “one per person” thing. At no point in the movie is occultism presented as a solution to the problem. Nothing that the protagonist tries actually works.

Now, I understand completely why Christians might be wary of horror and occult elements regardless. There is the issue of how much you might want to expose yourself to, even if such a thing is portrayed as bad. There is also the issue of appropriateness for children, which I can kind of get around (though I wouldn’t say that appropriateness for children necessarily makes or breaks a story, and I wouldn’t classify all of my own fiction as appropriate for children either), but that’s a discussion for another time. What I am getting at here is that somebody could read these reviews and go, “Oh, okay, occultism is portrayed as having negative consequences. I agree that occultism is bad, this movie agrees that occultism is bad, so maybe I can go to this film.” And that’s why I felt the need to write this comment, because, despite occultism being portrayed as bad, this is still not a movie that Christians should go to, and yet every review that I’ve read fails to convey what the *biggest* problem is with this film.

So, I will go ahead and say it now. One word: Nihilism. Nihilism is the idea that life is actually meaningless, that any kind of suffering you go through means nothing, all of your achievements mean nothing, etc. Everything is meaningless under a nihilistic worldview. And that’s exactly the kind of worldview this film presents. It actually utilizes a trope that I like to call “Satan exists, but not God.” Now, don’t understand this trope wrong when I say that. This trope does not necessarily mean that Satan literally exists in a film continuity or that God literally doesn’t exist in a film continuity. What I mean when I say that a movie uses this trope is that demonic power is portrayed as ultimate and irreversible, and that if some power for good exists in the world of the movie, it is either powerless or indifferent to the situation, unable to reverse the evil power.In the movie, while further occultism is rightly portrayed as not being the solution to the problem, the movie also makes it so that there is no solution at all (aside from the person who made the wish dying). Once the wish is made, it’s permanent. Period. Worst of all, the victim of the wish is an innocent person who never made the wish. The protagonist basically cursed her by making his wish, and now she’s trapped like this. She’s possessed by a demon making her act obsessed with him, and her true personality is still there, locked behind it all, desperate to regain autonomy again. So the film takes the worst route imaginable, not only having the protagonist make an irreversible wish using occultism, but also cursing an innocent person. And the innocent person can’t be helped. In the end, the protagonist dies from his foolishness, and the lady is freed from the curse. But, by that point, the demon inhabiting her has already killed people, and now she’s probably going to be arrested for it all. Basically she suffers the most of any character in the movie, even though she didn’t even do anything, and the movie just goes, “Well, that’s terrible, but that’s life. Just pain and torment before it all goes dark. Hope you enjoyed the movie!”

I am sick and tired of movies doing this, and, with this particular film, I just find myself very infuriated with it. Maybe it’s the fact that one of my recently written pieces of horror fiction from last year actually is about an innocent protagonist who is unfairly cursed as well, and yet goes a completely different direction with it, ultimately ending in an anti-nihilistic way. Maybe my alertness to darkly nihilistic horror is increased as a result, and now I react more to it than I did before. I don’t know. In any case, it’s abominable and a terrible thing to put in movies, and I wish more reviews of this film would actually mention this. If I could rate this movie an even more negative rating than “Extremely Offensive,” I would, because I think even that doesn’t say enough about it. I implore everybody out there, *don’t* watch this movie. Don’t feed the unhealthy love of nihilism that so many filmmakers today seem to have.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: no opinion

Negative—I would not recommend this movie, nor would I watch it again.

My sister is an avid horror movie watcher and convinced me to come see “Obsession” with her. I will say as someone who loves cinematography and acting that they did great in that aspect, but not much else is positive.

For starters, the main focus of the movie is on witchcraft. The main character purchases a “one wish willow” from a New-Age store, leading to the possession of another character. (Galatians 5:19-21)

There is also an insane amount of sex and nudity that it felt like I was constantly having to cover my eyes. (1 Corinthians 6:18)

As you can probably guess from a movie like this there are more cuss words and blasphemy then you could even count. (Proverbs 18:21)

Overall this is a very demonic movie so please do not spend your money on it, it’s truly not worth it. God bless.
My Ratings: Moral rating: Extremely Offensive / Moviemaking quality: 4½