Obsession x Incel Horror

Note: this episode contains spoilers for the movie Obsession!

This week, we’re bringing you an episode you’re gonna be absolutely OBSESSED with (wink wink). In this episode, Marcelle and Hannah dig deep into the extremely zeitgeisty horror film Obsession (2026, dir. Curry Barker). Marcelle walks us through the movie’s explosive popularity, its complicated ideas of consent, and the complexity of the horror genre’s treatment of gender and setting. By examining the movie through the lens of “incel horror,” they examine the film’s treatment of masculinity and the anxieties surrounding contemporary romantic relationships.

Related listening:

Spare x Tender Masculinity

Get Out x Horrifying Whiteness

Book 6, Ep. 3 | Rape Culture

Works Cited:

Barasch, Alex. “The Twenty-Six-Year-Old Behind ‘Obsession,’ a Terrifying Tale of a Crush Gone Awry.” The New Yorker. May 11, 2026. https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/the-twenty-six-year-old-behind-obsession-a-terrifying-tale-of-a-crush-gone-awry. Accessed June 25 2026.

Cieslik, Emma. “‘Obsession’ and the Rise of Incel Horror: When Men’s Entitlement Becomes the Monster.” Ms. Magazine. June 4, 2026. https://msmagazine.com/2026/06/04/obsession-incel-horror/. Accessed June 25 2026.

Clover, Carol J. “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film.” Representations, no. 20 (Autumn 1987): 187–228. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2928507.

Eqbal, Amelia. “Are Movie Audiences Smart Enough to Appreciate Obsession’s Incel Horror Message?.” CBC. June 5, 2026. https://www.cbc.ca/arts/commotion/are-movie-audiences-smart-enough-to-appreciate-obsessions-incel-horror-message-9.7224800. Accessed June 25 2026

Hamedy, Saba, and Greg Rosenstein. “How an Indie Horror Film Became a Box-Office ‘Obsession.’” NBC News. May 25, 2026. https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/obsession-curry-barker-box-office-hit-focus-features-rcna346824. Accessed June 25 2026.

Tudor, Andrew. “Why Horror? The Peculiar Pleasures of a Popular Genre.” Horror, The Film Reader, edited by Mark Jancovich, Routledge, 2001, pp. 47–55.

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To learn more about Material Girls, head to our Instagram at instagram.com/ohwitchplease! Or check out our website ohwitchplease.ca. We'll be back next week with a Material Concerns episode!

Material Girls is a show that makes sense of the zeitgeist through materialist critique* and critical theory! Each episode looks at a unique object of study (something popular now or from back in the day) and over the course of three distinct segments, Hannah and Marcelle apply their academic expertise to the topic at hand.

*Materialist Critique is, at its simplest possible level, a form of cultural critique – that is, scholarly engagement with a cultural text of some kind – that is interested in modes of production, moments of reception, and the historical and ideological contexts for both.

Music Credits:

“Shopping Mall”: by Jay Arner and Jessica Delisle ©2020

Used by permission. All rights reserved. As recorded by Auto Syndicate on the album “Bongo Dance”.

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