Obsession is about that one guy. We all know him, and we all Hate him.

Of course it's a horror

SPOILERS FOR THE MOVIE OBSESSION. JUST GO WATCH IT

A few months ago, I was playing games with a couple my wife and I both know. At some point the other husband and I started talking about how oblivious we were when we were younger, specifically to women who were clearly interested in us. The stories came out fast. He missed what was, by all accounts, an unambiguous invitation for sex. I missed an equally obvious invitation for a date. I remember one instance with crystal clarity: a woman gave me a hug and said “we should go out for coffee,” and I said, earnestly, without a trace of irony, “I just had coffee.” I wasn’t blowing her off. I genuinely wanted to go out with her. I was just that dense.

We laughed harder trading those stories than at anything else that night, a mix of embarrassment and genuine comedy. Our wives stared at us with bafflement, because for them, those same moments of reaching out had ended in confusion and quiet shame. Maybe they felt a little pity for us. Maybe for themselves, for marrying such oblivious men. But we assured them: this is a near-universal male experience.

Now, well past the craziness of the dating world, I’ve tried to understand why that happened, why I was so blind to the signals in front of me. The honest answer is that I was like Bear, the male lead of the horror film Obsession, locked in tunnel vision on a specific idea of a woman, and completely unable to see the real one standing in front of me. At the time I dressed it up as romanticism. Looking back, it was a lack of confidence disguised as idealism. My friends called it being too “nice,” a word I resented for years before I learned to understand what they actually meant.

Obsession is the first film I’ve seen that genuinely captures that mindset, and more importantly, the flaw at its core.

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“You Never Had Me”

The most eye opening scene in the movie comes when the real Nikki’s voice breaks through from inside her possessed body. She’s asking Bear to kill her, to end her suffering and set her free. Bear, who has already endured chaos just by being with her, immediately defaults to his victimization loop, Oh, now that I finally have you, you want to die? Her answer:

“You never had me.”

Inde Navarette’s amazing performance as Nikki is subtle and excellent from the start because we’ve seen this play before. Even in the midst of the nightmare that Bear makes of Nikki he still sees a possible rejection and lies in self pity.

Nikki also knows Bear’s intentions towards him even before the “One Wish Willow” break, Bear’s little knowing glances, his nervous gestures that are easily perceived by Nikki as a weird crush that she’s scared of breaking. We know where it’s going even when Bear doesn’t and it’s funny because the audience sees this clearly as well. Just like his friend, and just like I’m sure many friends we’ve had in the past.

We know it as soon as Bear places enormous weight on a single grand speech believing that the perfect words will finally make Nikki fall for him. A speech that’s not bad to be honest, but one that his friend sees through immediately. He knows Bear, he knows Nikki, and I’m sure has had to deal with Bear’s bullshit more than once.

I’ve had that friend. Most men have. The one who says “stop being so nice” when what he really means is stop pitying yourself, you sad sack. He warns Bear, begs him not to do it, practically spells out the humiliation ahead.

Even though Bear can’t do it still, Nikki has smelled his intentions and I’m sure has smelled them for a while now and begins to do the labour a lot of women do for the “nice guy.” Gives him a direct out, she asks him plainly: “Do you like me?” And Bear still can’t say it.

That scene was painful to watch, because I’ve lived a version of it. The all-or-nothing thinking that made every potential relationship feel like something that had to be won or lost in a single moment. The fear of rejection dressed up as romantic devotion. It wasn’t romantic. It was cowardice.

Bear’s fear of himself , his all-or-nothing obsession with Nikki, is what summons his Monkey’s Paw nightmare. And even after the wish is made, even as Nikki visibly deteriorates, he keeps going. He knows something is wrong. He continues anyway, still nursing the fantasy, still performing the role of the wounded romantic even as the real Nikki suffers inside her own body, a prisoner in a trap he built.

He never had the real Nikki, yet he pretended he had a chance. Typical “nice guy” shit.

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Not an Incel but Not Innocent Either

I push back when people call Bear an incel. An incel, as I understand it, isn’t just socially awkward or romantically unsuccessful , he’s actively resentful, misogynistic, nihilistic. Bear is none of those things. He’s something more recognizable and, in some ways, more insidious, someone we all know. Some of us were him.

The difference matters, but it doesn’t make Bear harmless. The film is precise about this. He dies, yes, but not before dragging his friend Sarah (who, in a cruel bit of dramatic irony, had been showing genuine interest in him all along) and his best friend down with him. He leaves the wreckage for Nikki to sort through. That’s the point. People like Bear don’t set out to cause harm, they cause it anyway, through selfishness they’ve mistaken for devotion.

He’s not radicalized, he’s not on a forum, he’s just some dude who has never developed the confidence to see what was actually in front of him. Mistaking obsession for love and connection. And, the funny thing is, most of us have either been him or watched a friend become him.

I was like Bear, and looking back at myself, I am deeply ashamed of that guy. There’s always a feeling of regret and wonder of what would be different if I was more confident, less desperate, and more curious about the women I liked, instead of pinning this on my own sense of self-esteem. I didn’t create damage like Bear, but I definitely hurt relationships because of it, ones that would’ve been great to have, either romantic or not. I hated that guy, even though I need to be empathetic to him as well.

Obsession is the most honest cinematic treatment of the “nice guy” I’ve seen, and like the best horror, it works as a warning. Not about monsters. About the damage male self-delusion can do when it goes unchecked.