
"A shy young man, Bear (Michael Johnston), has an unbearable crush on his lovely co-worker, Nikki (Inde Navarrette). So he makes a wish that she love him more than anyone in the world, and then he suffers the tortures of the damned when the wish comes true and Nikki becomes an obsessive, needy lunatic."
"Bear is a bit of a dolt, which makes it hard to accept him as either a protagonist or a villain, but maybe that's the idea: He's one of those terrible "nice guys" you've heard about, the ones who inadvertently leave destruction in their wake. When given a real chance to tell Nikki how he feels, Bear chickens out."
"Instead, he casually makes a wish on a silly novelty item he'd bought as a gift, a "One-Wish Willow," which is a little branchlike thing you break while speaking your heart's desire. Next thing he knows, the once-headstrong, no-nonsense Nikki is falling all over him, telling lies and doggedly pursuing him, all in an effort to get him to be hers."
"Once upon a time, this probably would have been a romantic-comedy setup, but Curry recognizes that in this day and age, it's a horror movie. There's probably a smart, chilling film to be made about the terrors of smothering and relentless adoration - one imagines what Rod Serling would have done with something like this - but this isn't really that film."
A shy young man, Bear, makes a wish that his coworker Nikki love him more than anyone in the world. The wish comes true and Nikki becomes an obsessive, needy lunatic, pursuing Bear with relentless behavior and lies. Bear is portrayed as a dolt who cannot confront his feelings directly, so he uses a novelty item, the “One-Wish Willow,” to speak his desire. As Nikki’s affection intensifies, it shifts from a potential romantic-comedy premise into horror territory. Her obsession escalates into familiar horror-movie violence and psychological terror, leaving destruction in Bear’s wake.
Read at Vulture
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]