The internets favorite (or least favorite depending on who’s talking) horror movie from this year is this small story with big implications that has a lot going for it despite being a very flawed film.

Full disclosure, this is my second viewing of the film. I saw it over the summer in the theater. This time around I watched it at home which created a very different experience. More on that after we take a look at the movie itself.

The film follows Bear, played by Michael Johnston. He first presents as a shy, lovesick, nice guy who is pining away for Nikki, played very well by Inde Navarrette, his longtime friend and coworker. He comes across a novelty toy called a “One Wish Willow.” He decides to give it to Nikki as a gift and finally reveal his true feelings for her.

However when the moment finally arrives, he can’t tell her and instead uses the One Wish Willow to make Nikki love him more than anyone else in the entire world. Suddenly, Nikki begins acting strangely. The One Wish Willow might have actually worked, but did Bear get his wish, or is his dream actually a nightmare?

That’s all I will say about the plot for now. There will be a spoiler section later in the review. For now, I want to hit a few sections of the film that work and don’t work.

For starters, the actors are pitch perfect. Johnston as Bear perfectly inhabits this guy I’ve met a thousand times. He’s the guy who thinks he being the nice guy, the guy who refuses to take responsibility, the guy who insists that things are happening to him and that he is not actively affecting the events in his life. He perfectly creates enough sympathy and connection with the audience that we go along for this disturbing ride while at the same time revealing the nasty side of the nice guy.

The real star here is of course Inde Navarrette as Nikki. This is the star making role that allows an actor to show off what they can do. It also provides an actor the perfect opportunity to fall flat on their face in the most embarrassing way possible. Luckily Navarrette nails it. She walks the tight rope perfectly. If she didn’t the movie, would not work. She is deeply unsettling. She is funny. She is heartbreaking. She is terrifying. She conveys multiple layers to Nikki and what’s dealing with in a very effective way.

I really appreciate the cinematography and the production design. They work together to create a world of wonderfully rich shadows and dreadful atmosphere. It was a fun movie to exist within.

I think the direction is very strong. Curry Barker is the director who got his start as a YouTuber. He handles tension very well. He has a good instinct for when to hold a shot and when to cut away. He withholds the right amount of information and delivers a dash of violence just when we’re least expecting it for incredible effect.

My biggest issue with the film is the script and specifically the point of view from which the story is told. The film chooses Bear for its protagonist. This means that we are on his side and seeing the story through his eyes. With this perspective we lose the much more compelling point of view which is Nikki’s. She is the one who is trapped and trying to get free. She is the one who is waging a war with the magic curse. Because we are in Bear’s POV, we never learn any more about the magic curse than Bear knows. The rules of this magic are muddy and vague as a result. Also being trapped in Bear’s POV means we are trapped with an inactive protagonist. He is a reactive participant in this story. Things happen around him and to him, and we are stuck having things happen around us and to us as a result.

The film has a lot to say about men and how weak men feel entitled to women. Sadly it’s more relevant now than ever with the headlines we’re seeing in the news today. Unfortunately, there is no character who ever successfully calls Bear out or challenges his behavior. Nikki is under a love spell and can’t challenge him. His two other friends don’t know what’s happening, so they can’t challenge him except to question why Nikki is being so weird. All of the challenges and criticism of Bear has to come from the filmmaking and the audience. I think that this is why the film has become so popular. It is a film that forces the audience to actively participate in its narrative. Since there isn’t a character who calls out Bear, the audience has to do it. It has driven people to social media and to forums to debate the story and its implications. The only other entity who challenges Bear is the filmmaking, but the filmmaking is more concerned about making a suspenseful and scary horror movie that it doesn’t leave enough time to clearly communicate its themes and challenge its protagonist.

As an example, Bear is living in his grandmothers house after she passed. There is something very thematic about this weak and entitled guy living in a house he didn’t earn and doesn’t take care of, but the filmmaking never draws attention to this detail. It never makes clear what this living arrangement says about Bear. It is also only mentioned in a couple of quick lines of dialogue and never really built into a meaningful theme or motif. But the house looks great and is very creepy when it needs to be which I guess is what the filmmakers really wanted. I respect them for wanting to make a scary movie, and I’m disappointed that they never fully or clearly explored its own themes and implications.

To conclude, I enjoyed the movie. It has a lot of ideas and a lot of craft on display. It genuinely scared me multiple times. It features great performances and some skilled filmmaking. It has a lot to say, but doesn’t say it all successfully. I would recommend it in order to be a part of the cultural conversation if nothing else. However it might be one of the most frustrating movie experiences you’ll have this year.

B+ It is my cup of tea.

One quick note on the two viewings. I loved seeing this in the theater. It was a packed house. I’m 36, and I was probably the oldest person in that theater by a decade. It was so cool to have a communal experience like that with a group of young people. Horror movies and comedies are best experienced in groups. I highly recommend seeing scary movies in the theaters whenever possible.

All right, we’re diving into spoiler territory.

Bear gives Nikki a ride home. She gives him the opportunity he says he’s been wanting. She asks him if he likes her as more than just a friend. He then chickens out and calls her by a nickname that he knows she hates. She is angry and leaves his car. In weakness and frustration he makes his wish that Nikki would love him more than anyone. There are so many nice choices in these opening scenes. Bear buys the One Wish Willow for Nikki as a gift and then uses it for himself. What a selfish prick. He is given the chance to be brave and confess and he refuses. He not only refuses, he then insults her. This guy is the worst kind of guy. Sadly he’s our protagonist.

A protagonist doesn’t have to be a perfect hero or someone without flaws. But in this case, Bear is such a pathetic scummy person who never grows or changes throughout the story. Nikki immediately begins acting erratically. She lies to Bear. She insists on staying with him, then screams and pushes him away. He should know something is up, but refuses to see it.

Nikki is clearly not the same person she was before the wish, but Bear refuses to see it, and because no one else knows about the wish no one can challenge him or call him out. His only real antagonist is his own conscience, and we’ve established he has no conscience and will not grow one. Because of this the dramatic stakes of the story are a guy who refuses to see the world in front of him and effectively no one challenges him. It’s a dramatically flat story with a flat character arc. If it wasn’t so creepy and unsettling and effective as a horror movie it would be unbearable. No pun intended.

It becomes clear as the story goes on that Nikki is trapped inside herself. This obsessive One Wish Willow Nikki is in control and it seems torturous. Nikki is trying desperately to escape throughout the film. She would be an active protagonist if we saw things from her point of view. Instead we are with Bear who is actively ignoring her at every step. He’s not actively thwarting her. He’s not an antagonist. He’s just refusing to pay attention. Her story is far scarier than the one we see. I kept thinking on both viewings how much more frightening this would be if told through Nikki’s eyes. Her friend puts a curse on her and refuses to help her at every step. That’s a compelling and scary concept. Alas it was not to be. Let’s get back to Bear.

In the opening scene, Bear’s pet cat dies. It gets into his grandmothers old medicines and dies. Is this Bear’s cat? Is it his grandma’s old cat that he inherited? How did it get into the medicine cabinet? All incredibly unclear.

Later, Nikki makes Bear lunch. To Bear’s horror he realizes that his sandwich is made from his pet cat. Nikki has clearly gone too far, but Bear refuses to accept it or see it as a problem.

Later, Nikki murder’s Bear’s friend Sarah when she admits to having feelings for Bear. Instead of ending things and doing what he knows must be done, he just lets himself be dragged through the rest of the story by Nikki. A passive protagonist is a recipe for disappointment.

An interesting detail that I didn’t notice the first time around was in Bear’s final plan. He wants to undo his wish, so he goes and buys multiple One Wish Willows. He tries to get his friend to undo the first Nikki wish since Bear is only allowed one wish. What I noticed the second time around was that Bear buys multiple wishes. Why does he need several of these if his goal is to simply undo the first wish? It’s either because he doesn’t think one will work, or it’s because he wants to undo the first wish and make another wish to have Nikki love him again, but this time more to the level that he wants. I think that is an incredible plot point, but the film never makes it clear if that was his goal or not. It’s open to interpretation. I wish it wasn’t. I wish it was scathing indictment of this terrible weaselly guy. Instead it’s a piece of unresolved themes. Just one of many in this movie.

Of course part of the films success is because it doesn’t fully resolve, but it will never be a wholly satisfying experience for me for the exact same reason.