Secret Obsession Is an Even Creepier Version of You—So Get Ready
The premise of Netflix’s new thriller Secret Obsession, now streaming, is right in the title: A deranged stalker, Russell (Mike Vogel), forms an all-consuming fixation on Jennifer (Brenda Song). When Jennifer wakes up from a car accident with severe memory loss, Russell is there claiming to be her husband. Oddly, no one at the hospital questions this—and so, Jennifer believes him. She goes home to what Russell tells her is their beautiful (albeit secluded) mansion, but soon cracks appear in his plan. Jennifer starts getting suspicious—as does a detective—and Russell does everything in his power to keep his charade going. Including, as you’d expect, killing people.
If that premise sounds familiar to you, it’s because…well, it is. Not only is the stalker genre a staple in entertainment—please see: Fatal Attraction, Obsessed, The Boy Next Door—but it’s had a strong resurgence this year due in large part to You, the thriller series about a bookstore clerk (Penn Badgley) who uses technology to cyber-stalk a woman. The show became a viral sensation late last year, when Netflix acquired the rights to it from Lifetime. Secret Obsession is essentially You‘s feature-length twin: Both pieces are campy and over-the-top but nonetheless disturbing. The former has all the ingredients to become major social media fodder, just like the latter.
“I do feel like there is a similar aspect [between Secret Obsession and You],” Brenda Song tells Glamour. “Stories like this really take us out of our lives. Regardless of what anyone says, we all love scaring ourselves with worst case scenarios and sort of living out that nightmare-slash-fantasy without actually being a part of it.”
Both of these nightmares, You and Secret Obsession, have one similarity that stands out above all: the “hotness” of the male stalkers. Fans were so smitten by Joe on You that they seemed to forget he’s a serial killer—something Penn Badgley pointed out countless times on Twitter.
Song already knows what she’ll say to fans who may swoon over Secret Obsession‘s chiseled-but-chilling antagonist, Russell. “Just because someone’s handsome doesn’t mean they aren’t crazy,” she says. “You have to remember that when romanticizing these killers, stalkers, rapists—whatever they are—you still have to remember the crimes they did and the lives they affected, if we’re talking about real life.”