At the beginning of the new thriller, Dark Obsession, we meet Henry (Leonard Amoia) and his wife Anne (Blaine Morris). Things are noticeably off as we witness passing moments of discontent. After discovering that Anne has secretly been taking birth control pills, Henry packs up and leaves to stay at his mother’s place leaving Anne in a state of shock. Alone in the large 80’s era home, Anne chats with her bestie Maya (Mena Suvari) over the phone to work things out. Soon Anne hears a voice whispering to her from the woods behind the house. Directed by George Henry Horton and co-written by Horton and the film’s star Morris, Dark Obsession struggles to build any real mystery due to a plodding first act and a handful of moments that just don’t ring true. This is a loving homage to thrillers from the 90’s that only picks up steam in the final moments while squandering its better attributes.

After her husband leaves, we learn more about Anne as she wanders around her home in solitude. She begins to make plans to pursue her art career again and begins making plans to sell the house and move on. Flashbacks to her marriage indicate that perhaps Henry’s departure was for the best. The plot thickens when Henry’s previous clients and even his family call Anne looking for him as he has disappeared. What’s worse, As Anne goes on with her daily life she begins to think that someone is gaslighting her into insanity. That’s not to mention that the voices from the forest out back keep getting louder and more insistent that Anne go for a walk.

Horton and Morris craft a script that knows what it’s going for but doesn’t always know how to get there. We have themes of marital struggles, abuse, infidelity, and disappearance but none of it is all that interesting. With one-third of the movie simply being Anne in the home, alone, we are left to ask questions like such as, ‘How did a young couple afford a house so large when their only income was from Henry’s lawn care business?’ Things could have been opened up just a bit with neighbor Charlotte (Danielle Harris) who also seems to be a victim of her husband’s demands, but all that we get is one scene at a front door.  Furthermore, Suvari’s talents are reduced to silky voice-over as the thing in the forest.

There are some good things here. While the film could have easily felt a bit claustrophobic with almost the entire film taking place on the property or inside the house, director Horton does well to keep things airy with an open feel that takes every chance it can to look outside the house. Luis Jordan Lorenzo‘s polished camera work gives the film a classy look. Also, supporting player Lucy Werner stands out for her role as Henry’s sister Maggie. Arriving unannounced, Maggie spices things up in the last third of the film, looking for answers to her brother’s disappearance. Werner injects a certain vitality that the film lacks up to that point.

There are a lot of good things to notice here but they are all mired in far more questions and strange choices than anything. Dark Obsession is a bland thriller that left us in the dark.

5 Out of 10