Horror Has a New Obsession With Inde Navarrette

Obsession opened nationwide May 15, 2026, and it did not sneak up on anyone. Director Curry Barker sold the film out of TIFF’s Midnight Madness section for a reported $15 million after a bidding war, on a production budget of $1 million. The film opened to a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and an A- CinemaScore. None of that is the story people are actually talking about.

Deadline is running headlines about sequels and anthology spinoffs. The horror internet has a different priority.

Inde Navarrette is the story.

Who She Is

Navarrette is twenty-five, from Tucson, and has been working professionally since her teens. Genre audiences have had eyes on her for a while. Three seasons as Sarah Cushing in Superman & Lois, an arc as Estela de la Cruz in 13 Reasons Why. She was building a resume that said she could carry emotional weight. Obsession confirmed she can carry a demon. Girl has range.

What the Film Asks

Bear (Michael Johnston), a lonely man pining for his childhood friend, gets his hands on something called a One Wish Willow. He uses it and Nikki finally loves him back. What that looks like on screen is Navarrette’s problem to solve for the next 109 minutes.

She does it across three registers without losing the thread of any of them. There is the Stepford version of Nikki, smiling too wide, giving Bear exactly what he wished for. There is the screaming version, a full unraveling that I promise is unlike anything you have ever seen. And there is the third one, the depleted shell, the one that shows up when the other two have burned through everything. Most performers can do one convincingly. Navarrette rotates through all three within one scenes worth of dialog.

The Work

Deadline named her as having solidified scream queen status. The Hollywood Reporter ran a full breakdown with her on what the ending demanded. Navarrette on the subject of her genre future was brief and direct: “If horror will have me, I will stick in horror for a while.”

Horror will have her. Obviously.