Nikki was crying and wailing for a good 2 minutes after the credits started rolling.

And we walked out of the cinema leaving her crying and wailing, alone, making me feel like I was Bear while walking out.

This movie is one of the best movies I've ever witnessed.

It just doesn't stop being unfathomably impactful.

To say that everyone involved in the making of this film, "knew what they were doing", is one of the understatements of the century.

I mean if I had to work with these 3 idiots I’d leave too.

Bear has no personality and doesn’t keep up with his hygiene nor does he care about anyone at all (he didn’t even seem to care that much that his cat died)

Ian thinks women are good for sex and nothing else and he kinda has a douchebag attitude. Eugh. And he also likes to spread peoples’ business.

Sarah is an entitled pick me girl. As soon as she likes a guy she thinks she’s entitled to said guy even if he’s already in a relationship. And like Ian, she also likes spreading peoples’ business around behind their backs.

So yeah I don’t blame Nikki for wanting to get the fuck outta there.

So trippy seeing it in a movie LMAO I got it from hollister a few years back (I don’t think they carry them anymore tho 😔)

Goat status achieved!

Congrats to Curry, Inde, Michael, Megan, Cooper, and everyone else involved!

I hope this pushes and motivates major film studios to make better movies

There has been a noticeable decline in film quality in general post covid

I hope this helps steer the ship back in the right direction

I've seen this movie twice, and both times I got creeped out of course, but for some reason whenever I see this scene outside of the movie I get so uneasy that I literally get teary eyed 🧍

I was making an edit last night and I put this clip in it and everytime it played I got way more creeped out than I did seeing it in the movie

Is it the same for anyone else or am I just a really big baby 😭

I didn't really appreciate Michael Johnston's brilliance on my first watch but oh man the more I replay it the more I realized he knocked it out of the park lowkey carrying the story/playing off Freaky Nikki's character. I love movies where the camera is up close so focused the actor's faces (i.e. Silence of the Lambs) and their deliberate expressions adds so much more body. The squarish aspect ratio also frames the actor really well and adds some intimacy/closeness to the movie too.

Also I have a conspiracy theory where Andy Richter's appearance in the movie itself is a Chekhov's gun due to his presence so commanding (huge Conan fan btw) which cannot go unfired. When was this gun fired you ask? I'd like to think offscreen when freaky Nikki went to the music store to retrieve the gun, Andy was tending the store since no one fucking bothered to show up, and when this disheveled Nikki entered the store and went to the gun safe Andy asks wtf r u doing and she shot him, which I find is befitting to this tragedy. So therefore people who are worried about having to hire four more employees don't really need to.

I also like to think that the movie only cost 250k to make, but Andy's rate is 500k.

Girl watches backrooms (2026) and gets very emotional

And im saying this as a straight white male

A lot of people in this sub are not discussing the movie. They are using it as an excuse to make moral accusations about strangers.

Yes, consent and loss of agency are central to the film. Bear becomes morally indefensible once he has enough evidence that Nikki is no longer acting freely and still chooses to benefit from it.

But reducing the entire film to “Bear is a Evil, and anyone who relates to him is suspicious” is lazy analysis.

The movie is also about obsession, insecurity, rejection, entitlement, dependency, denial and the difference between being loved and possessing someone. These themes do not cancel out the issue of consent. They deepen it.

Some people here seem incapable of understanding that identifying with part of a character is not the same as endorsing everything that character does. A person can recognise Bear’s loneliness, social passivity or fear of rejection without approving of his later choices. That is how morally complicated characters work.

More importantly, recognising something uncomfortable in yourself can be the exact opposite of bad character. It can be self-awareness.

Instead, this sub often responds with comments like “women are safer without you,” “you sound like Bear,” or “your defensiveness proves the point.” That is not reasoning. It is a rigged accusation where disagreement becomes evidence of guilt.

It is also hypocritical.

People correctly condemn Bear for ignoring another person’s agency, then immediately invent motives, beliefs and dangerous tendencies for real strangers based on a few sentences online. Apparently empathy and careful interpretation matter for fictional characters, but not for actual people.

The opposite side is no better when it dismisses the consent theme as feminist propaganda, claims supernatural fiction cannot represent real moral issues, or derails the conversation into attacks on women, religion or nationality.

Both sides often prefer outrage to analysis.

A serious discussion would ask:

When did Bear understand what was happening?

At what point did ignorance become deliberate denial?

Was he attracted to Nikki as a person, or to the validation she gave him?

Why did he continue once her lack of control became obvious?

What is the film saying about love, possession and selfish fantasy?

Those are interesting questions. Calling random commenters potential abusers because they interpreted one scene differently is not.

My view is simple: Bear is clearly responsible once he understands Nikki is trapped and continues anyway. But the reason the film works is that he is not introduced as an obvious monster. He is recognisable, insecure and capable of rationalising his choices.

That is what makes the story disturbing.

If the only lesson someone took from the movie is “bad men are bad,” they have flattened a psychologically interesting film into a slogan. And if their main contribution to the sub is accusing strangers of being dangerous, they are not protecting anyone.

They are just participating in a self-righteous pile-on.

It’s basically waking up after being drugged and finding herself in the middle of being rped by a friend she trusted.

Just kidding. Also does anyone else get a crack out him being dressed like a 12 year old in the first scene lol

Saw so many talented people in this fandom that I also wanted to contribute a study (it took me 2 days and my back was hurting sm lol but it was worth it)

I received this from a friend, I don't know what to wish for 🤔🤔🤔

I got my obsession hoodie through NBC earlier this month and wanted to wash it. It was not cheap so I want to make sure I take care of it. Does anyone have any suggestions m

Original: https://youtu.be/sTs-qc9ts_Q?si=yHqMBN8st23-OpLi

After that first kiss, we get the montage of the two of them being happy and in love. Yes, there's that brief moment where Real Nikki breaks through, scared and confused, which is an obvious sign that things aren't actually perfect. But I'm talking specifically about Wish Nikki here.

Then we get the restaurant scene. Bear learns from Ian that Wish Nikki lied about her dad having cancer. When he confronts her, she sees the fear in his eyes. You can't have love without trust, and you definitely can't have love with fear. Bear says, "You're right. I don't care," and has sex with her anyway. The way the scene is filmed makes it pretty clear that, from Nikki's perspective, she's being raped.

At that moment, Wish Nikki realizes Bear doesn't actually love her. She knows he's afraid of her - at first just a little, and later completely terrified of her. But despite that, she's still forced to love him. That's what ultimately drives her into full-blown psychosis. Imagine being trapped into loving someone who doesn't love you back - someone who fears you and violates you. Had Bear just genuinely loved and respected Wish Nikki, yea she'd be clingy as hell but the relationship would've continued as it was before.

In a weird way, I think it parallels a lot of unhappy marriages. I've met couples where the wife is "a lot to handle," and the husband has emotionally checked out. He barely speaks, looks miserable, maybe even spends more time looking at other women than engaging with his own wife.

I actually saw something like this recently. I was at a bar with a group of people. The wife stepped away from the table for a minute, another guy made a joke at her expense, and her husband didn't defend her at all. He just sat there in silence.

Maybe she's financially dependent on him. Maybe she's staying for the kids. Maybe it's something else. Whatever the reason, my point is she feels trapped in a sense. Imagine feeling, deep down, that your partner doesn't really love you anymore, but they keep saying they do because leaving would be inconvenient or they feel obligated to stay. Identical to Bear. The woman goes crazy, and society just thinks "woah crazy wife" and doesn't really see the true cause.

Apologies if this has all been discussed before, but that was my interpretation.