How Obsession Reveals A Monster (feat. Addison Peacock)

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]Hello, I'm Gus Agarella and I wish you have to watch this entire video until the end.

[00:00:05]>> Hi, I'm Addison Peacock and I wish you leave a thoughtful nuanced comment on this video about obsession >> and we are not alive much like people who don't heed the spoiler warning.

[00:00:20]>> So movies, we all like them [laughter] >> and we like some more than others. Uh, we are going to be talking about Obsession, which is such a good horror film. Oh my god, this movie is amazing, >> which is my new Obsession.

[00:00:36]>> So, usually like we don't cover things that are like still in theaters. And we will preface this by saying we're going to be talking a whole lot about what happens in this movie. So, please go watch it if you don't want any of that to be spoiled for you.

[00:00:50]>> Spoilers aoy.

[00:00:51]>> Yes. But we are going to be getting like down and dirty into everything about this premise, just the way that this movie like makes its scares work >> and all the really juicy and fraught like gender dynamics at play.

[00:01:07]>> Yes, exactly. You have been warned. We are going to begin talking all about Curry Barker's obsession and the story therein. If you're somebody who can't really handle watching really intense horror movies, then, you know, this is a good way to consume uh stuff about the movie without having to uh set your nervous system quite so on edge.

[00:01:30]Otherwise though, if you can't, you should watch it.

[00:01:32]>> Yeah, Addison, you you speak the truth because like this is kind of a no joke horror movie. Like I, you know, we are all horror adjacent people on the channel, but this gave me like the like icky tummy ache feelings that I got last when I watched like uh Hereditary the first time and also like parts of It Follows the first time.

[00:01:54]>> The last movies that gave me this feeling were It Follows and then uh certain parts of Long Legs.

[00:02:00]>> Right. Right. Right. And and and like I think like overall we could say that like Obsession is instantly one of the scariest movies to come out in like the last decade.

[00:02:12]>> And as soon as you say that, you know, you've summoned them when you say that, right? Like you summoned the horror hard men and they're going to be in the comments like, "I watched the whole thing and it didn't scare me at all."

[00:02:23]>> But then here's the quid pro crow on that. You have to be to them like, "Okay, then name a scarier movie." And they won't admit that they've ever been scared by a movie. So, we win. Exactly.

[00:02:34]And they're gone and they're banished back to the ether. [laughter] >> That's That's how you banish them.

[00:02:40]>> So, speaking of banishing, this movie is full of like terrible bad vibes and bad decisions all around.

[00:02:48]>> It's one of my favorite things. This is something um I very recently saw a movie that I'm not going to name, but that had a premise that was really appealing to me and then it really fumbled that premise and it made me really sad. This is the exact opposite, which is to say it also has a premise that I find really appealing and it it exceeded my expectations. I love it's at its core it's a monkeykey's paw. It's a be careful what you wish for. It's a monkeykey's paw and that is my absolute [ __ ] I love a monkeykey's paw. If for some reason someone isn't familiar with the reference, I just I don't want to ever assume. Uh, The Monkeykey's Paw is a short horror story by WW Jacobs. It's from 1902 that is about a family that gets this mummified monkeykey's paw that grants uh wishes. Each time you wish on the monkeykey's paw, a finger curls and the wish comes true, but the the wish always comes with an unforeseen uh consequence. The origin of the kind of contemporary be careful what you wish for, even though that's a longunning conceit, you can sort of trace pretty directly to the monkeykey's paw. Also like another like cognate for this is like the modern idea of like a genie story where like wishes go wrong maybe because there's like malicious intent behind the wish granter or maybe the wording wasn't exactly correct with this. This is a story about a character Bear who wishes for another character Nikki to love him more than anyone in the world and monkeys paw ensues.

[00:04:11]Something I really love about this movie, and we'll get deeper into it is, and this is unfortunately going to get lost on some audience members that aren't as good at critical thinking, but like I love the like the boiling frog journey that we take with the protagonist. Uh the pot the frog in the pot of water as it slowly heats up. We get the like slow dawning realization of just how [ __ ] up our protagonist is.

[00:04:37]He's a really good example of just because it's the movie's main character does not mean they're the good guy.

[00:04:43]>> Yes, absolutely. Because while Nikki under the effects of this wish that basically turns her into a like philosophical love zombie is responsible for a lot of the like scary moments in the film, this is much like uh Frankenstein as much about the monster as it is about the person who created it. And Bear is very much the creator of a monster in this. And also, I will say to go off what you were saying, he is an example of a character that is a like nuanced depiction of a real person. It's just that that real person is a bad person who gets worse under pressure and sometimes under absolutely no pressure.

[00:05:29]like he is the platonic ideal uh in fiction of a like nice guy TM.

[00:05:36]>> Yes. Yes. And I think like while it is probably a coincidence um from uh Curry Barker like naming him bear, it does sort of recall the whole like 2024 like would you choose a man or a bear?

[00:05:49]>> This bear is a man and he sucks. I think what makes this movie work is that like while the premise is very simple, almost mythological, like going back to fables and stuff, the like humanity and interiority that they give the characters, you know, even characters who we don't actually get to see a lot of is really what makes this work. And because it's mostly a character study of Bear, we get to peel back the layers little by little and see like what at first blush might be a character who you might have pos and even find relatable at the beginning turns out to be anything but that.

[00:06:25]>> The movie begins, oh my god, I'm so killc count pill at this point. I write so many kill scripts that I'm starting to say the movie begins. The movie is set in kind of anywhere USA. It's like a small town. Um, and it centers around Bear and his friend group who all live and work at this at a music store in this small town. Uh, by the way, just quickly, they all feel very believable to me as a friend group where they're like people that probably wouldn't be that close in other circumstances, but like lack of other options and like proximity have turned them into a friend group.

[00:06:54]>> Well, like you and me both originated in like East Coast like smallish towns.

[00:07:00]We're both aware of like people whose lives went this way.

[00:07:03]>> Yeah. And like sometimes you have people that like and they're not bad people, but they're not really like people you connect deeply with, but like you form bonds because we're social animals and you need friends. And so you have these like friend groups that crop up that it's like if these people lived in a bigger city and had more people to talk to, they probably wouldn't hang out. Um, >> but even so, there is like still sincerity to be found here like among this cast of characters. Like Ian, one of the first things we learn about him is that he is like so dieh hard and gung-ho for trivia night.

[00:07:33]>> All my man wants to do is play bar trivia.

[00:07:36]>> It's so good cuz it's like it's the thing that they do outside of work, the four of them, like Ian, Bear, Nikki, and Sarah. And he's like, I wake up rock hard every Wednesday morning getting ready for trivia night.

[00:07:48]>> I loved it.

[00:07:49]>> He's got the simple pleasures in life sort of outlook. As a person who plays bar trivia every week, I laughed unreasonably hard at that [laughter] line. Um, a quick thing, just a through line that I think really makes the movie work is it's use its deployment of comedy and uh both cringe comedy and just kind of earnest like just funny lines. The the use of levity, I think, makes the moments of tension and uh distressing stuff way more impactful.

[00:08:13]I'm a very big fan of comedy deployed in a horror movie context.

[00:08:17]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's another testament to like Curry Barker being someone who did YouTube comedy before becoming a director. I'd say that this sort of fits into the new growing group of upand cominging horror directors who give us bangers like right out the gate, but started in comedy like Jordan Peele and Zack Kger.

[00:08:35]>> Most of my favorite recent horror films have come from people with a sketch comedy background. The guys who made Talk to Me and Brer Back also started as YouTube comes.

[00:08:43]>> That's true. That's true. The The Brothers Filipoo.

[00:08:46]>> Yeah. I think there's something really to be said for I talk about this a lot especially when I talk about Jordan Peele who's one of my favorite writer directors ever is that comedy and horror are so closely related and they both involve kind of this really if you're good at them this really masterful kind of control of tension >> tension is the key word here >> with both laughs and scares you are building tension and then giving a cathartic release whether that's a fear response or a laugh response and I think that when you have a mastery of one and you love horror, it's not that difficult to port that skill over.

[00:09:19]>> And so often it is like the absurd friction between the human reaction and the circumstances happening. Like we know there's going to be a trivia night and we know that Bear really wants to confess to Nikki.

[00:09:32]>> He's been in love with her for like since like high school >> and he like moved there and she's like apparently like the only person that's been like nice to him. There's like a lot of stuff that he's sort of loaded onto this idea of what she means to him.

[00:09:46]>> She was there for him when his grandmother passed away. Uh we don't know the specifics of his life, but it seems like he moved to the town that they're all in because something happened with his parents and he was and he move was taken in by his grandmother.

[00:10:01]Now he lives in his grandma's house after she passed. In between like meeting with Ian and trivia night, he comes home and we see the first like scare and the first death in this movie, which is >> so sad.

[00:10:13]>> His cat Sandy, who was probably his grandmother's cat, got into the sleeping pills that were his grandmother's. It's the first kind of bit you get of the movie's like really whiplash, deliberate use of kind of whiplash tone because it starts with this sequence where like Ian is coaching him on how to tell Nikki that he likes her. And bless him, Ian is [laughter] Ian's not a perfect character, but like Bear dumps out this crazy in intense script that he wants to go by that's him saying things like, "I would choose you over anyone." And Ian is like, "Jesus, man, just ask her out for a drink."

[00:10:52][laughter] >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Like it's Yeah. No, it's it's absolutely like wild the extent that like if he needs to make his case this much to someone who already knows him, like what is the what is there left for the other person to even already have thought about it?

[00:11:08]>> And I find because Michael Johnston is a very good actor, I find that monologue, this monologue where he's practicing his confession, it's very like endearingly pathetic. But it did also make me go like, "Oh, buddy, you can't say this to her."

[00:11:21]>> Yeah. And and like speaking of endearingly pathetic, like the like when Nikki calls him and the first time we sort of hear her voice in the entire movie.

[00:11:29]>> Yes. After he's after the cat has passed and he's dealt with that, uh he is crying in bed and he gets and scrolling Instagram sad and he gets a call from Nikki and he immediately perks up.

[00:11:40]>> Yeah. But it's like he dealt with it in the way that he literally put that cat in the bin. I think there's a lot of men out there who probably see this like, I'm gonna pretend my cat didn't die so that this conversation doesn't get weird. And I'm still going to go to trivia night and show up cuz hey, maybe something will happen. And I have to tell you, and I think a lot of you already know this, that is a bad way to treat yourself in life.

[00:12:09]>> Oh, yeah. Don't stuff your grief down like that. Well, and specifically, guys, the reason he forces himself to go to trivia when he doesn't want to is because he finds out that Nikki has put in her two weeks notice at the music store where they all work together and he will in two weeks no longer have a builtin time that he sees her every day.

[00:12:28]>> Yeah. And so he's like, it doesn't matter that this happened right now. He doesn't even really like tell them before he shows up at trivia night. Like nobody knows the cat is dead.

[00:12:37]>> No, it's like a but this is like his now or never. And during the conversation, crucially, she drops a crystal necklace down uh [laughter] the drain, which I'm so sorry, girl. That's horrible.

[00:12:46]>> Cut to like Bear being like, I'm going to impress her by getting her a new crystal necklace. I'm going to do an act of service.

[00:12:52]>> I have to tell you a really funny thing about this sequence when he goes to the metaphysical store, which is I have been to that store many times. The store they shot those scenes in. Wow.

[00:13:02]>> I know that store very well. That is a store called The Green Man. It is in North or it is in uh the like North Hollywood Burbank area. I love that store. Shout out if you're in LA and you want to buy crystals or whatever.

[00:13:13]>> If you want [laughter] if you want to buy your own One Wish Willow, we'll get to it.

[00:13:17]>> No, they don't actually have [laughter] those. It was so funny because the the crystal necklace display he's looking at is real and in that store, but then there's like a shelf that I was like, that's the shelf they built for the movie. But before he buys the one wish Willow, which is this like novelty toy that he's going to make the wish on to get Nikki to fall in love with him, I do want to note how quickly he gives up on like getting a necklace for Nikki.

[00:13:42]>> He does give up immediately. She's like She's like, "This one's nice. It's like sunshine and a rock." And he's like, "She wouldn't like that." And then he doesn't try any of the other. Well, it's it's funny because like like one of them in particular is like noted as being like, "Oh, well, this like draws love to the person and I think Bear is so insecure that he's like, "Oh, no, no, no. If love is drawn to her, like I won't be a magnet for her love."

[00:14:06]>> Exactly. He's like, "I can't get her the rose quartz one."

[00:14:09]>> So, he gets this like $7 weird piece of wood called the One Wish Willow.

[00:14:14]>> He buys her a One Wish Willow, a little novelty toy that it's supposed to you break it and you get a wish. And the woman who sells it to him in classic like forboding cashier in a movie like this fashion is like, "Okay, just like don't come complaining to me after that you use it. If you use it, >> this definitely won't be the last time it comes up, but I absolutely love how like everything involving the one wish Willow outside of Bear's specific experience with it does read like a comedy sketch.

[00:14:43]>> It's so funny. It's Yeah, I love it.

[00:14:45]>> He shows up at trivia night. He's got his like [ __ ] ass gift, which isn't the thing she would have wanted. And he hasn't told anyone about the cat.

[00:14:53]Basically, the night sort of goes okay, perfectly fine.

[00:14:58]>> We get some great little bits of Nikki's characterization during this whole sequence. This is mostly, I think, a sequence to let us get glimpses of of her. She's like really funny. We learned she's a writer. her. She's been working on her book on company time, which is kind of part of why she decided to quit the job cuz the boss, Andy Richtor, who's Sarah's dad, does not like her working on her book at the store. She does a really cute move where they like all go where she and Bear go to the bar to order shots. Uh, and he is about to get his card out to pay and then she like acts like she's going to take his card and then she pulls her card out and she's like, "Haha, too slow. It's on me." And you know, obviously this is a friends group of like imperfect people and Nikki is also imperfect, but she seems like she'd be actually just such a good friend to all of them.

[00:15:42]>> I'm obsessed with this little bit where like [laughter] it's such a little small thing, but it's such a great piece of characterization where they're leaving the bar and there's a a homeless guy sitting outside the bar and she's like, "Does anybody have any cash?" And Sarah's like, "I mean, I have a 20." And then Nikki's like, "Thank you." And she takes it and just runs and goes and gives it to the guy, which is one very sweet, but two kind of an insane thing to do. [laughter] There's a moment where like Bear looks at her and it's clear that like part of the reason that he's sort of so fixated on her >> obsessed you may say.

[00:16:10]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He does like in abstract think of her kindness as an essential Nikki quality. She's very kind and she but but she's also kind of like messy and kind of chaotic. I love the snippets we get to see of her before things go so wrong. I wish even though it'd be a very different movie. I I wish haha wish that we got to see even more of Nikki as she really is. But because we're watching the movie through Bear's eyes, we don't get to see a ton of her outside of being the object of his desire.

[00:16:41]>> The little bit of time we do get to spend with her is that she does come across as like like you were saying messy, but also like she's aspiring to do other things like with her writing.

[00:16:50]None of this stuff crucially is stuff that Bear ever really asks her about or digs into. So, as a result, we get this like picture of like, yeah, like someone who's probably really cool and really nice and really fun to hang around, but not someone that Bear really knows all that well and that we get to know through his perspective other than like he's super into her.

[00:17:12]>> He offers to give her a ride home cuz uh Sarah and Ian want to go do karaoke and Nikki wants to go home. So, he offers to give her a ride home. And on the red, she's talking about her book a little bit and we get a really critical, I think, exchange where she's talking about the book she's working on. And she's like, I need to like be in a space where I feel love to write the book I'm writing. Um, and he says, it's a romance. And she says, no, it's a love story. And he says, aren't those the same thing? And I want to kill him.

[00:17:38]>> It's funny because like that particular line, I've been listening to a lot of um John Trouy's The Anatomy of Genres lately. I was listening to the last chapter again recently, which is the chapter on like the love story. There's this interesting like distinction he draws between a lot of the early like maladjusted romcoms were like less love stories and more sexual action stories where it's like it's the conquest of a singular perspective character who is like overcoming trials in order to win the love interest. Whereas like in an actual love story, it is more defined by two people finding a like justification to give away a little bit of their personal autonomy each mutually to become something one and better.

[00:18:25]>> Well, and there's also a really important uh thematic thing planted here that I think is is is really relevant to the whole story, which is that romantic love is only one kind of love and a love story doesn't have to be about romantic love.

[00:18:36]>> That is also true. And there was just that immediate assumption that like there are no other kinds of love cuz we learn a little bit more about the book later.

[00:18:45]>> Yeah.

[00:18:45]>> Is, you know, whatever. I'll just go ahead and I'm not going to say the specifics that we get to because we'll get to when we get to but it is uh if if we are to understand that the excerpt we get from Nikki's book later after it's been sort of warped is a reflection of at least some of what the book originally was. She's writing about siblings. She's writing about familial love and she sees Bear in this very sibling way. It's one of those things where like the exact feelings that Nikki has are left ambiguous to us, the audience, but it is most likely that Bear has not put in the work and she doesn't see him that way to like create anything that would go from there. And ultimately, like, you know, the most damning moment, >> this made me full body cringe. It's okay. It's okay.

[00:19:29]>> He like asks him straight up after he's like being like odd and flirty. He calls her freaky Nikki, which is a thing she was like bullied about in the past. And like she's just like, "Why would you even say that?"

[00:19:40]>> It's like a thing people called her in high school. She's like, "Why would you say that? You know, I don't like that."

[00:19:45]>> And basically, she asks him straight up, "Do you like me? And you better say it right now." And he he's he doesn't. He This was the one thing he came out tonight to do and he cannot do it.

[00:19:57]>> But because he's faced with the possibility of rejection.

[00:19:59]>> Yeah. Well, and also it's on her terms.

[00:20:02]She was the one who like created the circumstances through which the question is happening and it doesn't get to be his big revelation moment.

[00:20:09]>> Yeah. She just says point blank, do you like me? Please just tell me.

[00:20:13]>> Yeah. And it's two weeks until she's not in the store. And it's like it's really now or never. And especially past this point, it's like you just can't. It's rough. He blew his shot. And it's like your rejection sucks no matter who you are, no matter what kind of person you are.

[00:20:26]>> Of course it does. That was your moment.

[00:20:28]And he, you know, says he takes it back and he like he she asks him and he's like, "No, I think we're really good friends." And she's like, "Okay." And she goes inside and he kind of stews in his car for a little bit and he takes his little the little one wish Willow and he makes the the wish of the movie and he specifically wishes that he wishes Nikki loved him more, I'm going to quote, than anyone in the [ __ ] world.

[00:20:51]>> And this is a very problematic wish on many, many, many levels. The most generous read I can possibly have is, of course, that he doesn't think it's going to do anything. He's having a moment. If if this was Bear's only moment of like shitty selfishness, I would not feel the way about him as a character that I do.

[00:21:11]>> This is one of those things where it's like he just got shot down and he is breaking a dumb piece of wood and he's like saying something that like he's like, "Ah, if only."

[00:21:19]>> He's seeking a moment of catharsis. But given that the movie obsession happens because the one wish Willow is real, I think it's important to dig into the wording of this wish a little bit.

[00:21:28]>> He doesn't say I wish she was in love with me. He doesn't say I wish she loved me back. I wish she felt the same way about me I do about her.

[00:21:35]>> Any of those would work because when you say more than anyone else in the [ __ ] world, that also includes herself. Like that she would love him more than herself. It would also would mean that Nikki like loves Bear more than anyone else loves Bear is another way that that could go.

[00:21:53]>> Here's the thing, too, and maybe maybe this is revealing about me. I would never want someone to love me more than anyone in the world.

[00:22:01]>> No. Yeah. Absolutely not.

[00:22:03]>> I'm like more than your best friends, more than your family, more than your like if you have kids, more than your kid. Like no. Well, the thing is like effectively in that situation, you kind of become like that person's entire life. And that makes you effectively even if you're the same age as them, like for all intents and purposes, you are like their nurse, their caregiver, their like their everything.

[00:22:26]>> It is it's both deeply revealing of the thing Bear was saying earlier about how he would choose Nikki over anyone and anyone else. And then this is the like kind of natural conclusion of that. It's the wording is so even though he doesn't know it's real, the wording is such a red [ __ ] flag.

[00:22:40]>> And even then, like even when we get past like the wording and all the like, oh, like maybe he just meant that like, you know, she had a crush back on him. I think that the one wish Willow knew exactly what he meant and did that for him.

[00:22:54]>> Yeah, we get other uh examples in the movie of people who have used the Onewish Willow and obviously we're told that some people come back with like great regrets, but we also meet people that seem to have had a perfectly fine time with it. Yeah, I I I assume that it's not like a genie in that like your exact wording has to be perfect. I think it it knows what you want and gives you what you want when you break >> it reads your intent.

[00:23:17]>> Yeah. And uh and boy was the intent pretty disastrous. [laughter] >> All of a sudden Nikki starts acting kind of different. This early scene where like she's first under the spell of the one wish Willow is such a good tensionbuilding again like it goes back to that whole horror and comedy thing of like it's really like unclear on what level of um like her mind this is this is happening for her like she's fumbling over words and like you know sometimes when you're attracted to somebody you fumble over words but the way she's misremembering ing details is like, oh, this like she's either really really down bad because of this or like her brain can't even like remember that she's in there.

[00:24:04]>> I said this to you off mic, but I'll say it again now. This movie does not work if you don't have like an incredible central performance as Nikki.

[00:24:12]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:24:13]>> And god damn does Indie Navaret just crash it. She's so good. E it's like even like you know there are the small things too of like they get into the apartment and she's like I like it here.

[00:24:25]It smells like you.

[00:24:27]>> Her just like huffing the scent of the apartment.

[00:24:29]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:31]>> And like naturally like you know at this point in time it's fair that Bear probably doesn't know that the like thing worked. He's also in shock. Like he's he's probably feeling a whole lot of different emotions right now. But there is no doubt about it. Nikki is not herself. He lets her sleep in his bed and he's gonna sleep on the floor and then she asks him to sit with her and uh they kiss and we get the first >> jump scare.

[00:24:54]>> We've heard the first jump scare and the first kind of bit of information to the audience about how the wish works because as they're kissing, Nikki snaps out of it for a second, realizes where she is and who she's kissing and freaks the [ __ ] out.

[00:25:10]>> Yeah. Like she like like flings herself backwards. She's like screaming and then all of a sudden it just stops and she's >> and she's like, "I'm sorry. I'm fine.

[00:25:19]I'm fine. I'm fine." And Bear is like essentially like, "Are you okay?"

[00:25:22][laughter] a little bit. And then she's like, "No, it's fine. It's fine."

[00:25:24]>> But also the tenor the tenor of Bear's like asking her like if she's fine is really more focused on like, "Is this fine? Can we keep kissing?"

[00:25:34]>> He's like, "Did I do something you didn't?"

[00:25:36]>> Yeah. Exactly. And like Nikki is like, "Uh, oh, I saw something. I saw it was a panic attack." Look, she's coming up with these crazy excuses.

[00:25:44]>> It's awesome. I found out when I saw the movie, I saw a Q&A with the casting crew right after and I found out that was the first scene they shot with her.

[00:25:51]>> Oh my god.

[00:25:52]>> And as soon as she did the like snap out of it and snap back in, they were like, "Oh, thank god this movie's going to work." [laughter] >> Yeah, we've got it. We've got it on lock. Yeah. And so like uh you know, the the night sort of progresses in a increasingly weird way. Bayer sleeps on the floor and uh Nikki heads home. home the next day.

[00:26:12]>> Well, you're skipping a pretty critical detail that he wakes up and finds something waiting for him in the living room. [cough] >> Right. Right. Because his cat that was in the bin is now on the ground >> and Nikki has made a little shrine and he's like, "Why would you do this?" And she's like, "I thought, you know, I thought it would be nice." And he's like, "This is [ __ ] up." And she's like, "Is that bad?"

[00:26:35]>> Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny because it's like, you know, obviously we know that like Nikki like believes in crystals and had a little bit of a spiritual side, but it is like interesting that like wish Nikki, freaky Nikki, if you will, like suddenly like saw this like like, oh wow, like he obviously loved this cat a whole lot. Let's display this and like, you know, it'll be a moment for us. It'll be a moment, a connection. And this is the first thing she does that I'm like, bear, why the [ __ ] are you being so cool about this? [laughter] You need to call somebody for about her.

[00:27:13]Like, [laughter] you need like you need to be way more concerned about her. They go to work the next day and he's talking to Ian and he is to be fair talking to Ian and he's like something is I think she's like having like a breakdown.

[00:27:24]>> Yeah. Yeah. She said her dad's dying and then she did all this kind of weird stuff and Ian is like she's probably just done Molly, >> right? And like the whole time they're discussing this at work, literally Nikki does not look away from Bear for even a second.

[00:27:42]>> Her stuff in the background of every scene she's in is just I just think she's a genius. I just think she's a genius. And like, you know, there is no amount of praise we could give this movie that isn't also like praise for Indie Never's performance. There's like stuff where it's like she's in the background and obscured or stuff where she's like off screen or even when she's like all like there is no moment in this post the wish that you don't feel a little bit threatened by the unpredictability >> of freaking Nikki. God. So after this, Ian offers to take Nikki home from work that day. She doesn't seem to drive and and he's taking her home to like essentially check on her and be like, "Hey, uh, I heard you were having a bit of a weird situation last night. Are you okay? What's going on?" And have like like have an alone moment where he can like check in on see what's going on with her. He calls Bear later and he's like, "Yeah, she took she was on like Molly last night. She just had like a weird mixing it with booze just made like made her kind of she got kind of [ __ ] up and she's had like a really weird night. Um I think I'd just give her some space that is not in the cards because she is outside.

[00:28:48]>> Yeah. Literally literally like as the phone call is happening, we see Nikki like past the window and then there's a knock on the door and Bear opens the door and Nikki and and props to the lighting of this movie because she is silhouated in the darkness. She's like an angel out of the night with like a new necklace back and glowing eyes. Her eyes are glowing.

[00:29:08]>> They're not supernaturally glowing like within the like fiction.

[00:29:11]>> It's just the way they've lit her.

[00:29:13]>> And they light her so well uh throughout this, including like not lighting her, including having her like like incomplete shadow.

[00:29:21]>> The lighting is really really deliberate and really effective in throughout the movie.

[00:29:25]>> So dynamic. What a creature she is able to be despite being like, you know, just a like a conventionally attractive woman. Yeah, she's just a beautiful woman, but she's so scary and I love her.

[00:29:38]>> Hear me out, guys.

[00:29:40]>> Like, >> hear me out. And it's just a beautiful woman who does weird things. And she's like, okay, I was on drugs. I'm sorry.

[00:29:47]Uh, you know, there's this kind of very uncomfortable back and forth where it's raised that like he may have perhaps taken advantage of her a little bit, but like he also didn't, but also it's a little bit funk, murky, and a little bit weird, and she's just kind of like, "No, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine." Then she confesses her love to him and says that she started having feelings for him over Christmas. It's developed over time. She loves she's in love with him.

[00:30:11]Um and obviously he returns that and then they consummate their union.

[00:30:18]>> Yeah. And we get the like hooray.

[00:30:20]They're in love montage. Nothing's wrong with this. Yeah.

[00:30:25]>> And here's the part, the love montage, it starts to get so dark. We're watching for Bear throughout this love montage.

[00:30:33]We watch the shine start to come off the apple for him.

[00:30:36]>> He finally has her and he doesn't seem that happy about it. As the montage goes on, he stops being as enthusiastic.

[00:30:43]She's like trying to talk to him while they're watching a movie and he just like turns her head back to the screen.

[00:30:48]It turns out the like ceaseless devotion is perhaps not as appealing to him as he thought it would be in theory. And this is obviously like not a onetoone. I don't know if if if if if you've encountered this, but I know a lot of specifically girls who have encountered this where they get like like really aggressively pursued by a guy who has clearly put them on a really tall pedestal and then when they finally decide, "Okay, yeah, I'll give you I'll give you a chance." They're they're like, "Oh, I don't want I don't want that." [laughter] >> Yeah. I've known a lot of circumstances where people are just like, you know, they they get the person like even if it like wasn't like a long time thing and they were just like, I like this person.

[00:31:24]I want them now. I have them. It is not long until it's like h like babe I'm trying to like play video games and eat pizza. Would you please leave me alone?

[00:31:33]And it's like dude this was what you wanted. Like you changed your life.

[00:31:38]Watching him stop like start like frowning and looking like displeased with her was making me really viscerally upset because like obviously he doesn't know this yet but I'm just sitting there like you did that to her. You did that to her.

[00:31:50]>> Yeah. Well the the other thing too is these montage scenes are all like silent. We don't really get this sense that like real conversations are happening between them.

[00:31:59]>> No, they're just like kind of doing classic coupley stuff.

[00:32:02]>> Like even with like Nikki being like completely devoted to him, you never get this sense that like he has actually like known anything more about the real her. Like not that this is the real her in any stretch of the mind, but it's not even like he can like sate his curiosity about her because maybe he didn't have as much curiosity about her as he even he like pretended he did.

[00:32:25]>> Well, because he's not curious about her. He just he just wants her. Uh, I think this is like a good point to mention something that I think is really interesting and fundamental to Bear's characterization and to the characterization of the ensemble cast is that when it comes to everybody in this, we know that Nikki has like her writing and her book and she wants to like quit work to focus on that. We know that Ian [ __ ] loves trivia night. He's all about that trivia night. It's his like it's his thing.

[00:32:50]>> Oh yeah. Sarah has aspirations of being a tattoo artist. She's applying to art art programs.

[00:32:56]>> Yes. And meanwhile, you look at Bear and he does not have anything like that.

[00:33:02]>> He has no interests.

[00:33:03]>> He works in a music store and we don't even hear like what music he likes.

[00:33:08]>> He doesn't seem to like anything except for Nikki. And it's why that's what he wants her to also be. And then when he gets it, he doesn't want it.

[00:33:15]>> And and like literally, he couldn't even pretend to be like into stones long enough to get her like a stone as a gift. and he couldn't even like care about his own cat like for long enough to be the guy who is sad about his cat.

[00:33:30]But hey, like we're here to support Bayer because he loved something a whole lot. And he can't even do that because it's just like that would be embarrassing. The sincerity of it would ruin the image that other people in his mind have of him of the well put together guy who deserves the girl and he's just a guy. He's just a normal guy.

[00:33:50]They're uh they're at a dinner. The montage that we see them they're on like a dinner date is the next kind of big beat we get. We get an example of the fact that he has no idea. He has no interests. He has no desires in his life. He has no plans cuz she asks him what he wants to do and he's like he turns it into a bit about being a food critic, but he doesn't actually he's not passionate about food. He doesn't actually want to do that.

[00:34:10]>> That's the thing is that like he was like saying that because they're in a restaurant and he's just goofing around with her. He's doing like a little bit which is like fine but like it's so revealing because it's also like this guy's not passionate about anything. The only thing he's ever been passionate about it seems like is this one person and that's so bad for you. That's so unhealthy dude.

[00:34:27]>> And at this point we've also seen passion isn't even like really the right word. We all know the right word is obsession. But it's like that wish was a wish. It wasn't what he like actually wanted. So, we get a he gets a phone call from Ian at the restaurant and Ian tells him that he looked into it and Nikki's dad is not sick.

[00:34:45]>> And he's like, I don't know why she would lie about that, but that's something I know. And he also tells him that Sarah told him that Nikki had told her that she saw Bear as like a little brother. So, there's something. This is so weird how this happened. And then Bear asks Nikki, he's like, "Is your dad really sick?" and we get what has become like a moderate like I can't stop doing it. I don't know why. I'll be like alone in my car. I can't stop doing this thing that she does where she does her like she does like no no no no no.

[00:35:16]Yeah. Yeah. Oh my god.

[00:35:17]>> I thought WE WERE HAVING A NICE DATE.

[00:35:19][laughter] >> It's so good. It's like it's like so like immediately like oh my god like like thrown for a loop, thrown for whiplash. You you think that Nikki thinks or at least this version of Nikki thinks that like if the lie is exposed her like her like like he'll immediately break up with her and then her life is over because this is her sole purpose now.

[00:35:41]>> All she can do is love Bear. This is the only thing she can do.

[00:35:44]>> And but even then there is still enough of Nikki's like preexisting brain to have her give a tiger's eye to Bear.

[00:35:54]>> Well, it's a thing that she clearly loved. It used to belong to her mom who we can gather uh is no longer possibly is dead. Uh and she's giving it to him which is so dark to me cuz I'm like I just that's so clearly that's something you cared about that belonged to your mom and now because her brain has been re she's like being forced to like all her love is funneled to him. It's like here's my like most prized possession.

[00:36:18]This is like one of the reasons I don't subscribe to what's been sort of going around and what I'll call the demon theory of obsession where like it is a different consciousness put into Nikki's brain.

[00:36:30]>> No, it is.

[00:36:31]>> No. Well, here's the thing. I think the like distinction is it is more like her brain is misfiring and the personality that is in there has no control over what it's doing externally. I don't think it's a separate conscience so much as like she is being hacked. She is suffering from a computer virus and much like in the way that like a mental illness can make people do things like against their will or have intrusive thoughts. Uh the intrusive thoughts are not just winning, they are like breaking the Guinness Book of World Records for like the sport of being Nikki and being in love with Bear.

[00:37:06]>> As you see the interpretation, however, I think that the idea that it is some sort of external consciousness is supported by the text. We'll get there.

[00:37:13]>> Yeah. Like I think it is ambiguous enough to believe that it can go the other way too. But at the very least, the tiger's eye does say something about what old Nikki thought of bear is that because the tiger's eye represents confidence. She wanted him to have confidence and like have that.

[00:37:28]>> Well, and again, we do get that distinct sense. She did describe him as she wasn't just like, "Oh, he's just a friend or a cork." She's like, "He's like a brother to me." She does love him.

[00:37:36]>> And her book, >> she just doesn't love him the way he wants her to. And her book is about siblings. Yeah, it's about sibling love, which means that like, you know, part of like her role in Bayer's life was like I want to uplift and support this guy like I would a family member. And part of that is like the like residue of normal Nikki having like ooh a tiger's eye.

[00:37:59]That'll be good for the bear I know, the bear I love. Uh the bear I know. Yeah.

[00:38:03]>> Yeah. There's these vestigial bits of her. So obviously uh as soon as she has her little restaurant freak out, he walks that line of questioning right on back. And he again now we start to be get the point where I'm like, "My sympathy to you is dwindling, my guy, because she is clearly not well." And instead of calling Ian back and saying something's wrong or perhaps calling one of her loved ones or maybe getting her in touch with a mental health resource, he takes her home and he [ __ ] her. And and like I'm not going to linger on this, but it is a note that I think is getting lost particularly in the way I've seen a lot of men talk about this movie unambiguously whether he is aware of it or not. This is a story about rape.

[00:38:42]>> Yes. And so and so here's the thing I have to say because I know that like the bear from the beginning of this movie again has a lot of relatable qualities.

[00:38:50]There is an attested male loneliness crisis. Like we're not, you know, we're not going to ignore the fact that like there are adjacent things that happen to guys in the real world that makes them as lonely as this. But what I must say to all of my fellow men out there is that this is about the point of the movie where Bear should stop being someone who you try to absolve of mistakes that you could potentially make and start being like, I don't relate to this man anymore because this isn't something I would do.

[00:39:21]>> He is a cautionary tale. It is a cautionary tale. Uh he is deliberately a relatable character so that when you get to the points that become his sort of moral turning point, you go, "Oh god, that's how easy it could be to accidentally do something like that if I'm not careful and I don't work on myself." And just to highlight too, like everything about the leadup to this, especially the restaurant, points us to like obviously it's a very unfilmic solution for her to get like enrolled in like a mental health facility or like have like experts see her. It's unfilmic, but also it would be out of character. It is both telling and more intriguing that Bear does not even attempt those solutions before proceeding with the Shirad. He also doesn't bother to call back Ian who was like, "I think something's really wrong with her because I learned this information." And then call him back and be like, "You're right. She had this freak out at the restaurant. I think something is really wrong. We should do something." You know what I mean? Like the resources and the options to like utilize Nikki's support system are offered to him at various turns and he ignores it because I think on some level he knows and and Ian calls him out on this. On some level, he seems to know that Nikki, if she was healthy, whether this is a mental health episode or actually supernatural, but he doesn't know for sure yet, that if a healthy version of Nikki wouldn't want to be with him. And I think he knows that on some level.

[00:40:46]>> He's like such a bad friend on top of everything he's doing to Nikki. Ian's like, you know, maybe not the best guy either, but my god, like he >> Ian's like, this is actually a movie that explores a dichotomy I've actually written an essay about before. This is so funny. It was I wrote it back in college. I call I wrote an article about um Ross from Friends and Joey from Friends. And I was talking about obviously we won't want bad behavior in general, but there's this really interesting difference between kind of the pernitiousness of the hashtag nice guy and the like sort of straightforwardness of the classic bro.

[00:41:18]And I encountered this a lot in college without getting into any like, you know, specifics because they, you know, I have stuff I'd prefer not to talk about on a movie a movie podcast, but like I knew a lot of guys who were like kind of frat bro types, but were like, and maybe like would do some dumb [ __ ] like they would like drink too much or they would like, you know, play beer pong and like break a [ __ ] chair by accident because they like sat on it too hard because they got too wasted or whatever. But they were like fundamentally good dudes who like I I had like a a time when I was really a freshman in college and I got way too drunk um at a party and one of those guys uh gave me a piggyback ride back to my dorm, made sure I got in safe, um got me water, his brought his girlfriend to get me water and food and get something in my stomach and they took good care of me. And like that's a kind of guy I knew where they're like maybe kind of douchy sometimes or maybe a little annoying or like maybe make some like dumb like calls and like cuz they're like 20 and they're stupid, but they're like fundamentally honest and fundamentally good and you know what to expect. And I also encountered directly guys who would consider themselves probably superior to that, who were very like intellectual and very emotionally sensitive, who did stuff that was deeply pernitious, manipulative, and [ __ ] up. Because at the risk of sounding reductive, there's such a thing as a guy who's like too dumb to be dangerous. Well, yeah, that there's layers to this, but I think like, you know, guys like Bear in friendships with guys like Ian are ultimately sort of like allowed to continue to be crappy because in a way, you know, a guy like Ian, he is too dumb to be evil himself, but he's also too dumb to like notice how [ __ ] scary his like friend actually is.

[00:43:01]>> Yeah, Ian's kind of douchy, but he's not like But but Bear has stuff lurking in him that is like way darker.

[00:43:07]>> And that and that's the thing. Nobody expects it from Bear because he's kind of a [ __ ] ghost.

[00:43:12]>> They describe him as a closed book in the movie, >> which Freaky Nikki doesn't mind because she can read the whole thing from the beginning.

[00:43:18]>> Read the whole thing. I won't we won't break down every single scare, but there's some really incredible spooky stuff happening at night uh while he's trying to sleep where she's standing in the corner of the room watching him sleep. I think what's going on and it's it's text in this movie that like Nikki is herself when she is unconscious.

[00:43:38]>> Well, this is why I think the argument can be made and I'm a big I'm a proponent of it for it being some sort of external entity that's sort of like crawled into her brain. Not literally, but like metaphorically crawled into her brain because when we get multiple pieces of confirmation that when she's asleep, real Nikki is conscious. And also at one point in the movie, real Nikki refers to the other self as a separate person. She says, "She's asleep. Don't wake her up." In a different scene. I >> I I agree with that being like the text.

[00:44:09]The thing is, I think it's like a sunken place, but by way of like what was already there being rewired and what was incompatible with that vision being pushed back.

[00:44:19]>> I mean, what's critical about the sunken place is that there is somebody else driving.

[00:44:23]>> Yes. Yes. I just I don't know that it's like, you know, a demon from hell literally like >> Oh, I don't mean that it's a literal demon necessarily. I just think >> Okay. Yeah, that's that's the theory I don't agree with. I like I agree with you about like, you know, genuinely it being like Nikki's actual cognizant self with agency is not the one steering.

[00:44:42]>> I think that basically the wish created a person who would love Bear more than anything in the world and then sort of sort of forced it into Nikki's brain.

[00:44:50]>> Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's it's a little bit like the the Cortiseps, which anyone who's like watched The Last of Us kind of knows how that those fungi work, but it it feels like a sort of like the one wish Willow created like a wish cortiseps that infected Nikki's brain so that like when she's like awake, uh the Cortiseps are like, "You love Bear. You love Bear. You love Bear. You're not Nikki. You love Bear."

[00:45:10]>> Well, I saw somebody make some comparisons to the way she speaks and like AI chatbots.

[00:45:14]>> Yeah. Yeah. Like obviously this movie is about abusing and manipulating someone and like taking away their agency, but the AI chatbot like adjacency can't be ignored. The way she talks, it is it is sort of like [laughter] it's like the wish like created like an chat GPT Nikki and put it in her brain. It's really uh >> again like it's not just that she's doing weird things out of devotion to bear. Like that's the crux of it, but she's also doing weird things because the real her is trying to like wrestle back control and is like unable to do so.

[00:45:53]>> So, one aspect of that is that wish Nikki, freaky Nikki, is not sleeping.

[00:45:58]So, she's awake at night. She says something about like, "I don't like my dreams." And we can read from later stuff that we get that that's because real Nikki is trying to break through when she's sleeping. And and so we get this incredibly frightening sequence where she's watching him sleep and she's like kind of moving around really spookily in the shadows. Uh and I'm obsessed with [laughter] a bit that made me laugh extremely hard while I was also scared is when she's like go back to sleep. But he doesn't really know what else to do. So he's just kind of like okay and he lays back down [laughter] and tries to sleep. I kind of read that scene of like because it happened like right after the like sex scene scare quotes. Um, I think that it was like Nikki was half asleep, tried to get away from Bear, got about as far as the wall, and then the programming took over, and now she's just kind of glitching. Yeah.

[00:46:47]>> For that whole sequence, >> there's a lot of internal battle stuff happening.

[00:46:50]>> Yeah. While noting like that the dream she just woke up from paints a very different but accurate reality vision of what's going on with her and Bear.

[00:46:59]>> The next morning, Bear is like, "Um, he's scheduled for work and Nikki's not scheduled for work." He goes to leave the apartment and we get one of my favorite shots in the whole [ __ ] movie because she has absolutely covered the door in duct tape.

[00:47:13]>> Yeah. Yeah. And she's like, "Oh no, it it looks like you can't go to work. I guess you're going to have to stay if you can't get the door open."

[00:47:19]>> And he just doesn't even acknowledge it.

[00:47:22]He just like forces the door open and leaves and goes to work. And at work, Ian, this is when Ian starts to call him out and is like, "Something is really wrong. Something is really wrong with thinking. it seems like you're taking advantage of it. And he's like, "No, I'm not. She's fine. She's literally fine."

[00:47:36]And that's when I'm like, "I hate you, Bear. I hate you."

[00:47:39]>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like he's done a little bit of like looking into the One Wish Willow. Like he's looked at Reddit.

[00:47:44]>> He like Googled it. Yeah.

[00:47:46]>> But then he's like, "Yeah, whatever."

[00:47:47]You know, Nikki likes me, so it's probably fine. It sucks because like not only does Bayer not like, you know, cuz like obviously you're not going to be like, "Hey man, like best friend, I think I like did a supernatural wish that like brainwashed Nikki." Like you're probably like Bear's not courageous enough to admit that, but also he probably doesn't know. Like he'd think he would sound crazy, but he doesn't even agree with Ian that Nikki is not herself and she clearly isn't.

[00:48:13]She's been scaring the [ __ ] out of him with all of the weird stuff that's going on, but he's like, "Oh, but the upside is that like I have the chat GPD sex doll IRL."

[00:48:22]>> Yeah. And uh Ian really tries to call him in and he's like, "Man, I don't want to think badly." He basically says like, "I don't want to think badly of you, but it seems like you're taking advantage of her while she's having a mental health crisis, and it seems really [ __ ] up."

[00:48:35]And he promises him that like, "No, she's fine. She's literally fine." And Ian's like, "Okay, well, I'm having a party tonight. Come by yourself. Don't bring Nikki. If you guys are normal and okay and it's a healthy relationship, then prove it and do something separate." And so he goes home and f before he goes into the house, I believe, is when he calls the number on the box of the One Wish Willow. And this just [ __ ] guy answers. [laughter] >> This is again again this is like paced like like outside of the context of the movie. This is paced like a comedy sketch and it makes it and the context around it all the more unsettling.

[00:49:11]>> It's so both scary and funny. I love this guy where he's just kind of like uh yep. And he's like okay I'd like to alter the wish. He's like we don't really do that.

[00:49:19]>> Yeah. That's also Curry Barker. That's the director.

[00:49:22]>> Oh is it? That's really funny.

[00:49:23]>> Yeah. Yeah. Side note, want to point out that Bear doesn't want to cancel the wish. He wants to alter the wish. He's like, "I love that I clearly the wish worked." Um, I love that I uh, you know, magically forced her to be in love with me and want to be with me, but I would prefer if she didn't act so [ __ ] weird.

[00:49:40]>> Yeah. Yeah. She's got to stop doing like such strange things.

[00:49:43]>> At this point, he has now admitted to himself by doing this that he did this to her. So now he's just like, "Oh my god, I'll just fix the wish a little bit and then it's perfect." cuz her behavior is like affecting him negatively. He's he's really the victim here in his own mind.

[00:49:58]>> And it's only when he's not given the option to alter it that he says, "Okay, then I'll cancel it." And the guy's like, "Yeah, we don't really do that."

[00:50:03]Which I loved.

[00:50:04]>> It's just such a fun little bit, but like just the like um like Bear's like, "But you mentioned you said the word cancel." And the guy's like, "No, I was reading your intent."

[00:50:11]>> He's like, "Yeah, you just seemed like you were going to ask about that." Well, and then we get one of the most uh some some really chilling beats in this scene after it pivots from funny to horrifying. And he says like, you know, is it real? Does what she feel is what she feels for me real or did like or is it just the wish? And the guy says just because you chose this for her doesn't mean it's not real. The wording of you chose this for her is so dark. I it made my stomach drop. I love it. I think it's really good. And he also says, "Do you want to talk to her?" And this is where I'm specifically like whoever is wish Nikki when Freaky Nikki is driving Nikki Nikki is somewhere else. her like soul has been put somewhere cuz then he says you want to talk to her and it just you can just hear her screaming.

[00:50:56]>> I think that like that's either the soul recepticle she's in or that is like what her internal mo monologue sounds like.

[00:51:03]>> Yeah. That's like what's going on inside her head. Utterly horrible.

[00:51:06]>> And Bear is like kind of trying to talk himself into like being like, "Oh well, I'm obligated to take care of Nikki." He doesn't know how to do that. But he couldn't even like process what happened to his cat. How is he gonna take care of a whole human being who he doesn't appreciate on a personal level?

[00:51:24]>> Does he that he is essentially like mentally and emotionally broken?

[00:51:27]>> Essentially, she has become the replacement pet.

[00:51:31]>> And we get a bit of that imagery a little bit when he gets home and she has because she's just been standing by the door unmoving waiting for him to come home. She has um pissed and [ __ ] and vomited.

[00:51:41]>> Oh, it's like it's she's just the slimiest girl. It's [snorts] It's so gross.

[00:51:47]>> She's just covered in the sound of like the carpet squishing when she walks.

[00:51:53][laughter] >> Oh, it like it's it's so vile. And the fact that like like she sees him and she's immediately so happy. But she's like, "What happened to me? I'm so gross. I need to go shower or don't look at me." And it's like, [laughter] "Oh no." Like like that's not even not just not Nikki. That's like not a functioning human being any like she's gone.

[00:52:17]>> That's what I'm saying. He broke her. So she goes to take a shower and then he tries to sort of soft launch the idea of going to the party by himself. Obviously that doesn't work out. So cut to they're at the party he did bring her. They're all playing like party Jenga where there's like dares written on like it's like you do a dare or you drink and there's like stuff written on the Jenga blocks. Nikki pulls one that we don't know what it says, but then she starts to read an excerpt from her book.

[00:52:42]>> So, it is clear that like whatever happened to the Hansel and Gretle sibling love story that she was writing.

[00:52:50]The text has been altered. She has gotten back into the writing post change and it has become extremely distressing.

[00:53:00]It's like really it's like well it's the perversion of the sibling relationship that she had felt with Bear and now it's been like twisted into something unnatural which is like in this case some [ __ ] fairy tale incest stuff.

[00:53:14]>> Yeah. And like the imagery of like you know like like flaying him and using that for like her own pleasure. She invokes the willow branch at one point.

[00:53:25]She says, "Love that the branch of a willow tree only branch of a willow tree could conjure." Which is again, I think, bits of real Nikki poking through in the writing.

[00:53:34]>> And that's I think what is like the most terrifying of like this state that she's in cuz it's not like she's completely like unobservant of what's going on in the world. She's just unable to control any of it.

[00:53:47]>> The next bad thing gets set off when Bear gets a Jenko block that tells him to kiss the person to his left. And the person to his left is Sarah. Uhoh.

[00:53:54]Oh no, drama. Nikki's not going to stand for that. Except she does. And she's not happy about it.

[00:54:01]>> She does the most incredible frown. Like just the most cartoonish frown. Stomps around, drags Sarah's chair back, and then sits where Sarah was. And then goes on this insane speech about how no one will ever know the level of love or connection she feels for Bear ever. And then [laughter] first she's like, "I'm joking, you guys." And then no one laughs. And she's like, "Fine, I'm not joking. Deal with it." [laughter] I think that she's correct in the sense that like human beings were not built for like >> that intensity.

[00:54:32]>> Yeah. Yeah. It like it like fundamentally I think that nobody in the history of the planet Earth has ever like loved somebody as much as this version of Nikki loves Bear. And clearly the consequences of that are disastrous for like social animals that need a community that need something that need not [ __ ] this is what people need.

[00:54:56]>> Oh, and then real Nikki breaks through again and she is terrified and she tries to basically beg for help and tell everyone in the room that this is not her. And then she smashes a bottle into her face. And then Freaky Nikki takes back over and is like, "I'm fine.

[00:55:13]Everything is literally fine." And like because this is like really the one time in this entire movie that we see like false Nikki among like a real social situation, you like you get the absolute confirmation that like bear, you've made some terrible mistakes, some that should keep you up at night for the rest of your life, but at this point in time, it's now or never. She can't live in this world like this.

[00:55:40]>> She can't live like this, man. Look what you did. and and naturally like you know and like this is another part where like sketch comedy logic sort of like takes over for a bit is that the hospital won't accept her because she refuses to admit herself and like there is some logic to that but at a certain point it's also just like okay but but like look at her and look at this man do you trust her with this man do you trust her based on like an involuntary cycle >> but for the sake of the movie it is like sorry this is how this works bearer you have to solve your own problem and you won't.

[00:56:14]>> So they, you know, they go home. He asks her to b go back and sleep at her own place or says he's going to sleep on the couch tonight. She essentially says, "If you do that, I'm going to kill myself."

[00:56:23]>> And she says it in again the most like, "Wow, real Nikki is a good writer."

[00:56:28]>> Yeah. Really like gorgeous pros.

[00:56:30]>> It is. It's like one of the most beautiful like uh like like poetic ways of describing um a terrible fate that would befall her. And it's for this [ __ ] loser >> who turned her into a zombie.

[00:56:47]>> And I can see why there are some folks who, even though I don't agree with this interpretation overall, who read the movie as touching on like abusive relationship dynamics because obviously threats like that are a tool used by abusive partners to get what they want.

[00:57:01]H I have also encountered that particular strain of like obsession interpretation and to me I find it kind of weakly justified in the same way that you might look at something like weapons and be like well this is really unkind to the elderly.

[00:57:18]>> Well freak freaky Nikki uh Wish Nikki is utilizing abuser tactics to get Bear to do what she wants. But that does not mean that Nikki herself, real Nikki, is not first and foremost the victim, the the first victim of this story.

[00:57:34]>> Yeah. Yeah. And like like for people who have gone through people using these kind of tactics, like I am very sorry that happened to you. It it is it is terrible.

[00:57:43]>> Yes. Exactly. And I can see why this movie would be triggering in those ways.

[00:57:47]However, that doesn't mean that Bear is not still the villain of the movie.

[00:57:52]Moreover, it's one of those things where like in the cold light of day, there was probably more to the bad thing than its effect on you. Like the thing that made the person like this might be something completely different. And in this case, it is something that was inflicted by the principal character. Trauma like that can come from a lot of different places. But if we look at this situation as it is, it is less that she's an abusive partner and more that Bear created an environment where his own abusive manipulation was reflected off the mirror surface of Love Nikki onto him.

[00:58:34]>> Yeah. Because the wish that he made was based on his like kind of obsessive feelings and now they are being mirrored back onto him. Also, even if you don't literally interpret the other Nikki's being a demon, I would just give this as kind of a comparison. He has essentially summoned a demon and now that demon is hurting him. Nick, while Nikki is asleep that night, real Nikki wakes up and she says, and as Bear is sneaking out to go meet with Sarah, who has something important to tell him and real Nikki in a scene that was one of the most upsetting scenes in the movie to me, and also the scene that I feel like is the writer, director, and everyone involved looking down the barrel of the camera and saying, "Bar is the villain of the movie." Real Nikki wakes up and says, "She's asleep. I'm awake. It's really me. Please kill me. Kill me. I can't do this. Just please kill me.

[00:59:18]>> She begs to die.

[00:59:19]>> And Bayer says, "What's so horrible about being with me?" One, [ __ ] you, man. And she says a thing that made me cry. She says, "I've never been with you." Because anytime they have been, she has been a prisoner in her body.

[00:59:34]>> And that to me, that is like the most nightmarish thing that Bear does across the the entire movie. That is the key moment that it is the point of no return for Bayer as a character.

[00:59:47]>> Yes, that is his point of no return.

[00:59:49]>> There is no longer any semblance of a person that like we can and should relate to. It is a person who has like completely left the realm of anything that would be considered good behavior to anybody. That is how you get a character that my audience [laughter] that an audience full of people watched swallow a bunch of pills and then change his mind and try to throw up those pills. And when he did that, the audience [laughter] booed. Yeah. Because this is the story of how Bear ruined his own life in the same way that this is YouTube, so everyone's seen or heard of Breaking Bad. In the same way that like Walter White just needed something to become who he always was inside. And for Walter White, that was meth. And for Bear, it was the one wish Willow and what he could use it for.

[01:00:41]>> Exactly.

[01:00:41]>> The the finale to this is really really worth watching for yourselves.

[01:00:46]Definitely go to theaters while this is there. See it. I am tempted to go see it again. I'm also really scared and a baby and might not see it again because I've until it's like on a smaller screen.

[01:00:55]>> I'm going to say I've seen it twice.

[01:00:57]>> Oh my god. Yeah. Yeah. No, I I I need to work up the courage because like it's just really good. horror is in a really good place right now. And I think that this one, especially in all the ways that it is creating a cornucopia of really strongly felt, passionate interpretations of it, it I think it really speaks to something that is really deeply ingrained and worth kind of digging out of the social landscape right now.

[01:01:25]>> And I just think it's like we've said before, like at its core, a really good and interesting character study. give you I'll leave you with a bit of uh information, a bit of trivia that I learned uh watching Michael Johnston in the little like talkback that I got to see where he was saying who who plays Bear. And that is that he actually chose the black and white bracelet that Bear is wearing in the movie. And the reason he selected it is because we watch Bear sort of journey through this like morally gray area and end up in this very dark place. And so he chose this black and white bracelet to sort of remind himself of the sort of the weird kind of jumbled like moral journey that the character takes. I just thought that was very interesting as a piece of visual language and also a reminder to the actor playing him. And he also was saying, you know, another thing he was saying is that when you're playing the act the character, you can't judge the character you're playing. You have to sympathize with them. So he was like doing the movie and then he's like watching the movie back when you're not playing him. You're like, "Oh no."

[01:02:22]>> Well, see, that's dedication. That's the craft of acting. That's what made it so believable. You know, the performances across all of this was so good.

[01:02:30]Obviously, Indie Never is the standout.

[01:02:32]>> She is just incredible. [laughter] >> Looking forward to everybody's work going on from this. Curry Barker, I am going to see whatever your next thing is, man.

[01:02:41]>> Oh, last thing. I want to leave us with a bit of uh a bit of uh [laughter] one degree of separation lore, Addison Lore, Wana, all of it. uh which is Michael Johnston and I years ago were in a together in an episode of the sci-fi anthology podcast THE HIDDEN FREQUENCIES.

[01:03:01]>> YO, I remember The Hidden Frequencies.

[01:03:04]>> Oh, did you listen to the episode I was in? Um because uh and it was recorded, by the way, in a physical studio. So, we were in the same space together. It involves like a bunch of uh kids uh or like teenagers in like the 80s summoning this kind of like succubus creature that was played by me and if I remember the story correctly, it's been gears, but I believe that Michael Johnston was the one who survives the events of the story. And I believe he killed me [laughter] in the story.

[01:03:29]>> Um >> from from from Succubi slaying hero to succubi creating monstrosity. That is the story of uh his his characters.

[01:03:38]>> Yeah, it's just a very funny. I doubt he would remember me at all because it was like one like three-hour recording session like >> eight years ago. [laughter] But that's just a funny connection. One degree of separation, baby.

[01:03:50]>> It's a it's a beautiful small world. Um man, love horror, love stories, you might say that I'm obsessed with them.

[01:03:57]>> I'm obsessed with them.

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[01:04:06]>> Thank you for watching. I'd wish that you subscribe, but I already used my wish and you only get one.

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