Critical Review Of The Film The Secret Obsession
Thriller Movies are a highlight to anyone’s expectations when it comes to choosing genres. They give intense excitement, a high level of anticipation, anxiety, and extreme-expectation. What viewers do not want is just another storyline that is predictable and has been told before. People may know every Psycho film which is known as a Hitchcock classic. There are some viewers who may see it enjoyable or disturbing. To clarify the famous shower scene never shows the knife touching flesh, but it is still following a terrifying plot. There are also several scenes involving a corpse. On a more calm topic, a character steals money from her clients boss, and a couple is shown post-sex, though they are clothed. Gradually, there is some drinking and smoking. With that said, this is a classic of filmmaking, one of the most influential and respected films. It's terrifying and brilliant, and families with teens can enjoy the scares together. Unfortunately, not all thriller films can not achieve that level of excellence. Secret obsession a psychological thriller that is not very much secret, nor much to obsess over.
In the beginning there is no comparisons between The Obsession to Psycho because the killer (Norman Bates) is able to maintain his disguise as a good guy. As for the bad guy (Russell Williams he did maintain his disguise in the beginning of The Obsession afterward everything he did was predictable. It starts off by introducing (Jenniffer Williams) she is running away from a suspicious human being who is trying to murder her. Moreover, she gets hit by a car leaving her unconscious and hurt. Next day she appears in the hospital and it shows she had short-term memory loss. A man (Russell) appears who is with her alongside throughout her whole process of recovery. Due to, Jennifer losing her memory she could not identify the man she assumed it was her husband, because that is what Russell had informed the hospital. Russell had it planned it all from the beginning but he did good with not showing his true identity. That is what is known of a killer they automatically disguise themselves as someone they are not so they can receive trust of the other person. Russell thinks he will not be caught by anyone. Yet, the cop (Detective Frank Page) already had suspicions of him along with a nurse (Ashley Scott).
At first Detective Frank page was going about his day until he had some information to give to Jennifer, and no one can give information about any Russell. Of course a character who did not want to have no identity whatsoever so he would not get caught but what do you know Jenniffer starts to get flashbacks and starts to get very suspicious. Not only because he grabbed Jennifer rudely by the arm pressuring it a lot, but because she started looking through his wallet and found her ID which lead her to unlocking his computer and she finds a load of images of her actual husband. Anyone can predict that she would have someone rescue her and it could be the person of her dreams or something. Yet, it took a drastic turn of events. Apparently Russell was way ahead of everything he actually confessed to her way to soon saying that he is not the man she thought he was. He also explained that he had to do it for love and had to get rid of anyone that could get in his way. That involved killing her mother, father, and her husband. Unrelateable to Psycho Norman was put after a brief hospitalization for shock, he developed dissociative identity disorder. He wanted to escape the guilt of murdering his mother. Assuming his mother’s personality to repress his awareness. Evidently, in The Obsession Russell tries to cover his steps, but gets spotted by nurse. She did the wrong thing when she came up to him because many people know that it is not always a good idea to confront a matter like this without knowing if it is dangerous to approach or not. Well situation was not good to approached she straight away went to calling the detective cause of how rudely Russell said “back off my car and leave me alone”.
Undeniably showing that the cop was going to show up with who absolutely no one. Typical movie with cops with no back up. The detective tries to prove a point because he lost a child and did not want a situation to happen to someone else. As anyone can figure Russell beat the detective down and tied up Jeniffer again. Now, he did come up with a creative way to hold the detective captive for him to be unable to escape. To clarify Russell hid the detective in a freezer and as for Jeniffer he tied her fully with ropes. As he tried to get her to fall in love with him in the most romantic way. Sarcastically saying by viewers that he had her in ropes and had one candle to make it seem romantic. Now in almost most thriller movies there should always be an easy way to escape out of this. Jennifer seem to have found herself with a lighter that Russell left behind as he was trying to hide a body. She burned the rope fully and cut herself freely. Yet she went around to do the same thing run around the house trying to find an escape. Knowing he would find her either way if she tried to escape.
Despite most of the obvious points throughout the film. As soon as Jeniffer had came to a sense that she should go somewhere else other than in the house. It becomes a bit more interesting this is where the adrenaline kicks in wondering what is going to happen to her. Well then it makes one think that someone has to be there to save the person being attacked. Who could that person be? Many can assume that the detective could be dead by being in a freezer for so long and the nurse well she is definitely out of the picture, because she has no idea where they were located after all she did just call the detective. This was the ultimate big moment where we all know the killer obviously dies and the good guys live. Apparently the detective was able to awaken and escape the freezer and in the moment where Russell finds Jeniffer in the woods and has her at gun-point. So that is when the detective comes in to rescue Jennifer. After all she decides to move to San Diego where she can restart a whole new life. One other thing it is always easy to determine how a thriller can end one is saved by an anonymous person who turns out to be the one who was assumed to be dead. Throughout the film some scenes came off a bit intense with the almost scene where it seemed to come off as abuse to women and how he killed her family thinking only of how he felt and not how she felt.
There are some points where Secret Obsession could have been a good film if the acting was not so bad. All the yelling and screaming and then boom the captive is hit with the words “Quit yelling no one is around to hear you”. Maybe coming up with better script lines could have made the film more creative and interesting. Not to mention, the actor playing Jeniffer is Brenda song. An actor known for her role in Zach and Cody. It possible from our perspective that we see she is a person who is meant the childish, funny, and action types of movies. Maybe the role just was not meant for her. Jeniffer’s crying came off as more of her laughing than her crying dramatically. There was also a period of time in the beginning where there was an actor mentioned who was given no name and just came off as completely creepy. By randomly coming into the hospital wondering how Jeniffer was doing and if he could visit her but was not allowed to. That may have been a good point of just throwing people off the main point. He was automatically killed by Russel just because he appeared on the scene and he did not like how suspicious it all was. Kind of tricky though it could have been pulled off that this anonymous actor was the killer but did not turn out to be. Russell being played as a good guy character was blown way to soon they should have been able to keep his nice character a bit longer.
Applauding a film for being the best and something to not be predictable can be really difficult to find. The Obsession was a film created to be to predictable and it is what makes film so uninteresting. The film lacked new ideas, enthusiasm, apprehension, amenability, and impulsiveness. All this should have been contributed a bit more. There are higher chances that other thrillers may be much more of an improvement than watching this film.
