After a man comes to a psychiatrist claiming to be pursued by a demon, unable to penetrate the man’s psychosis, the psychiatrist ignores his professional ethics, begins to investigate, and realizes his patient may, in fact, be telling the truth. (THE SIXTH SENSE meets Polanski's THE TENANT)

SYNOPSIS:

Much like J. Sheridan Le Fanu, Alfred Hitchcock, M. Night Shyamalan, and others, I’m drawn to the idea that our perceptions can subvert reality, perhaps leading us astray, perhaps even to our doom. Today, especially, contemporary culture assaults itself. Through media. social websites, celebrity-obsession, and, now, A.I., our very realities are under attack, in doubt, and most troublingly, seduced. OBSESSOR explores this until the exploration, itself… seduces us.

COMPS: THE SIXTH SENSE, DON’T LOOK NOW, IMAGES, THE TENANT, VERTIGO

A celebrated Chicago psychiatrist, DR. MARTIN HESSELIUS, finds his career in jeopardy due to unfounded charges of malpractice after a tragedy involving a patient’s treatment. As his practice falters under the notoriety and bad press, a man, JOSEPH SHORE, comes to him in desperation, claiming that he finds himself being pursued, hounded... by a demon. The man, in an unhappy marriage, and with a troubled, 17 year-old stepson, now finds himself in a kind of waking nightmare that only he can see. Shore struggles in the shadow of his wife’s dead husband, the stepson’s father.

With the malpractice court case ahead, Hesselius looks for an attorney. He fears that he might lose his career. Desperate for redemption, he sees Shore’s case as a lifeline. He meets Shore’s family: wife LAUREL, and stepson, JESS. Prior to Shore’s recent problems, the marriage had been struggling: Laurel questioned Shore’s commitment. To save his marriage, Shore has been trying to help Jess, whose interest is photography, mostly dark subjects. And he seems to have come under the influence of a friend and his mysterious father, RODERICK VAN DAMME, and their circle of friends.

Shore describes first seeing his demonic apparition in some photos Jess shot at a gathering Van Damme had in the woods. It’s a sexually-charged WOMAN: pale, voluptuous, with black eyes, long, dark dress, and short, white, spiky hair. She stares out of the photo, locking eyes, an angry, deranged look emanating. He’s forced to look away. Earlier, Van Damme had given Jess a large, very old book to study. Shore wonders if the book may have some connection to his demon.

What follows is a series of uncanny events as Hesselius penetrates the case. Shore describes the enigmatic woman as erotic, even arousing, and yet chilling, exuding evil. Hesselius begins to think something more is going on. Violating his professional ethics, in his off-hours, Hesselius begins to shadow Shore.

And then… he, too, sees his patient’s demon and begins to come under her spell.

But when Shore decides the psychiatrist’s therapy is going nowhere, he decides to end it. Hesselius fears Shore may be suicidal, dangerous to those around him. When he tries to offer his spiraling patient’s wife empathy, they become attracted. Through a private investigator, FRANK TEDESCO, Hesselius learns Shore has an old apartment—but never seems to sleep there. Instead, Tedesco says he’s drawn to crowds, perhaps to avoid being alone. When not at work, he stays out late at bars and clubs, anywhere with people around, then sleeps outside and in the bus station.

Despite their efforts to resist, Hesselius and Laurel have now fallen in love. Laurel, vulnerable now, believes she’s lost her unbalanced husband to his psychosis. And Hesselius, his career at stake, sees Laurel as a refuge. But, shadowing Shore relentlessly through the city, Hesselius thinks his patient is in the grip of an external and very real evil. He suspects Van Damme.

Hesselius investigates. He finds the book is full of satanic ceremonies and incantations. The cult practices a dead religion and may have somehow persuaded Jess into joining them. Van Damme has a huge servant, CLAUDE, who does his dirty-work for him. When the investigator, Tedesco, turns up brutalized and dead, the psychiatrist realizes Van Damme ordered Claude to do it. So now, Hesselius and Laurel may be seen by Van Damme as obstacles to Jess, and so, perhaps, targets.

With his court date just ten days away, Hesselius finally secures an attorney. Then, he tails his patient to a bluff over the water where Shore gazes out and down for long minutes. Hesselius wonders if he may be planning to hurt or even kill his wife, enraged that she ever doubted him. Then, later, Hesselius watches as Shore lures her to a rendezvous in an old warehouse. Realizing Shore has snapped, Hesselius intervenes. But, in the confusion, Shore, unexplainably, has disappeared.

Then, in a COMPLETE REVERSAL of what WE THOUGHT WE’VE JUST SEEN:

Laurel is shown to have not been attacked by her husband, but rather by the actions of a delusional Hesselius believing he’s defending her against... no one. Shore, it turns out, has been dead for days!—a suicidal leap off that bluff—and Hesselius has been, himself, obsessing, with Shore, now his demon. (OUR PERCEPTIONS have been completely subverted: As Hesselius followed his patient, WE’VE BEEN SEEING only VISUALLY-INCOMPLETE DETAILS of people WE THOUGHT were Shore. But, in fact, they were strangers that WE and Hesselius, both, had, through OUR OWN POINTS-OF-VIEW, and the now-obsessing psychiatrist’s escalating delusions, come to believe were his patient.)

Laurel had been informed of her husband’s death by the police in the aftermath of the warehouse “attack”. WE learn that Jess had not been lured into the cult, and they had nothing to do with the case, were a RED-HERRING. They were only after Jess’s substantial inheritance from his deceased father, due to be released on his 18th birthday. Jess had just hung out with them for his photography. So now Laurel realizes that Hesselius is, himself, disturbed, delusional, believing that Shore is not really dead, and that he’s planning to kill her. The psychiatrist rushes off, intent on following his “patient”.

Yet, despite it all, Laurel realizes that she still loves Hesselius. She gets him on her phone… He tells her he’s followed “Shore” to that bluff (where Shore had leaped to his death). It had been a favorite place to walk when Laurel and Shore first met. There, she finds Hesselius and confronts him with the truth. It triggers his delusion that Shore is stalking her, and suddenly, they are in another “confrontation” with the nonexistent husband, livid at her “treachery”. OUR POV shifts between Laurel and Hesselius’s delusion: she denies her husband’s presence, despite what appears to Hesselius (and US, through his POV) being in the very face of it. A struggle ensues. Facing Laurel at the precipice, but “seeing Shore,” the obsessing Hesselius shoves her back to stop “Shore” killing “himself”. But, falling backward, Hesselius loses his footing, and, clutching at nothing, he plunges off the bluff. Laurel screams.

In a Coda, WE SEE her in a hospital room, injured, but apparently alright, speaking to someone (perhaps her son, or Hesselius?) OFF CAMERA. But as WE move in, and OUR VIEW shifts, WE SEE that she is alone in the room. WE realize that her husband’s doctor, once her lover, died in the fall, and that she is now obsessed, speaking to the nonexistent Hesselius… now her demon.#

(As is evident, OBSESSOR requires a precise and deceptive visual approach, a director able to manipulate audience perceptions just as the story manipulates those of the characters. Casting, too, would require actors as captivating, vulnerable, and seductive as those in VERTIGO and THE SIXTH SENSE.)