Why Obsession’s Original Ending for Nikki Would Have Been a Huge Mistake

Curry Barker’s Obsession has become the surprise horror story of 2026. It has become the kind of low-budget breakout that turns a YouTube filmmaker into a name everyone in the genre suddenly knows. But many will be surprised to learn that the version we got onscreen almost didn’t happen.

Barker has admitted that he originally planned a far bleaker, Romeo and Juliet-style finale in which both Bear and Nikki die, and he even shot it. In an interview, he recalled filming both versions, treating Nikki’s survival as a one-take afterthought he never expected to use. He shared with EW:

It was his father, screenwriter Jeff Barker, and others around him who convinced him to flip it. They told him, “Dude, I think it’s way more disturbing if she just survives this thing,” and they were right. Killing Nikki off would have undercut everything the movie spends its runtime building. It would have given the movie a tidy and merciful exit that it never earned.

Why Nikki’s Original Ending Was Bad Compared to the Current One

The genius of Obsession is that it refuses to let anyone off the hook, least of all the audience. Bear, the timid nice guy, is the real villain, wishing on a One Wish Willow for his crush to love him more than anyone else, and then refusing to undo the damage. Meanwhile, Nikki is the tragedy of the story.

A confident and independent woman, Nikki is reduced to a hollow shell, trapped inside her own possessed body. When her true self briefly resurfaces, she desperately begs Bear to kill her. Allowing her to die in Obsession‘s ending would have been the easy way out. It hands Nikki an escape hatch, softening a film built entirely on discomfort.

More importantly, it would have stripped the ending of its lingering impact and removed much of the reason to revisit the story. Curry Barker wanted to make that horror and tragedy land, and the only way to do it was to force her to keep living with it. The ending we got is crueler by design.

When the spell finally snaps, and Nikki returns to her body, her eyes are wide with pure terror after seeing all her friends dead around her. The aftermath is bleaker. No one will possibly believe what truly happened, and prison or a psychiatric ward almost certainly awaits her. Survival condemns her to something far worse, which is exactly why it works.

What Obsession‘s Ending Means for Inde Navarrette’s Character

Inde Navarrette as Nikki Freeman in Obsession | Credits: Focus Features

During a conversation with Collider, Inde Navarrette shared that the real Nikki was seeing everything that unfolded around her. She explained, “That’s why she has the grief at the end, because she’s watched it happen. She’s felt it. She has to deal with it. It wasn’t her fault. Her life has completely changed.” She further touched upon the alternate ending where Nikki kills herself, sharing, “In the very end, she can’t deal with that trauma, and she decides to die.”

However, they went against that decision, with a solid reasoning: “She’s a final girl. She wouldn’t do that. She’s gonna sit with the grief.” This essentially shapes the character of the real Nikki. While the movie leaves her future deliberately unresolved, it drops a faint hope with the character-defining ending that she’s strong enough to survive this whole ordeal.

But it is also the ambiguity that makes it work. Nikki doesn’t get closure, redemption, or even an answer. We are denied any reassurance that she’ll be okay. We probably don’t want Barker to answer that in a sequel either. In our review of Obsession, Richard Valero called it “far and away the best horror movie of 2025.”

What do you think of Obsession‘s original ending? And do you think Nikki will appear in Curry Barker’s next movie since it’s set in the same universe? Let us know in the comments below!

Obsession is running successfully in theaters.