Months into its hype, inspiring think-piece essays on the feminist underpinnings and the cost of the toxic male gaze do little to prepare you for the actual experience of watching Curry Barker’s “Obsession.”

It’s horrific, gruesome at times and grim going for a “wish fulfillment fantasy” tale, even one that goes oh-so-wrong. But what shakes you is how deflatingly sad it is.

There are victims everywhere, and whatever you think of these fickle, fresh-out-of-high-school “kids,” at the front of your mind is “Nobody deserves this.”

Barker’s first theatrical feature after breaking-out with the viral video movie “Milk & Serial” online is premised on a jokey old saying that was dusty with age when his Alabama parents were young.

Behind every man is a woman whose life he ruined.

One young man’s “obsession” becomes a young woman’s curse — her free will and agency ended, all sacrificed against her will in service of his heart’s desire.

It’s about a wallflower’s wish for his crush to share his unexpressed and unrequited obsessive love.

“I wish that Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the f—ing world!”

Baron or “Bear” (Michael Johnston of MTV’s “Teen Wolf” reboot) is a nebbishy introvert who has spent months obsessing over his fellow music shop employee, Nikki (Inde Navarrette of TV’s “Superman & Lois”), the perky, plucky and petite life of the party.

And there’s always something party adjacent going-on with the quartet of new graduates working for doddering Mr. Harper (Andy Richter) at Mad Music. Ian (Cooper Tomlinson) is the ringleader and Bear’s counselor on “never a right time” to tell Nikki how he feels. The boss’s daughter Sarah (Megan Lawless) is the fourth employee, fourth member of their bar trivia contest team and awfully attentive to Bear’s moods and well-being.

Nikki may not be aware of it, but she’s sending Bear mixed signals — begging him not to skip trivia, promising to tell him something “important,” but giving off bigtime “friend zone” vibes as she does.

Bear? He’s naive and new to all this, practicing his “pour out my soul” to Nikki spiel, at Ian’s direction, to a waitress at the local diner when we meet him.

Ian takes way too much interest in whether Bear tells Nikki “how you feel.” And Bear is still awkward enough to miss signals, too timid to take the chance of “spoiling” something that may never happen anyway.

But a trip to the New Agey crystals and whatnots gift shop sees him stumble into a bit of magical kitsch — an ’80s “Wishing Willow” (electrical plastic) stick. Break the stick, make a wish and it’ll come true. Top tip — nobody should break the stick and make a wish because these things, new in box, are “vintage” and worth something.

Another reason is “Be careful what you wish you.”

Barker and Navarrette cleverly handle Nikki’s “transition” from “friend” to someone confused about why she’s compelled to come on to this intimate opposite sex pal from work, bar-hopping and bar trivia nights.

That’s the devilish brilliance of the character and the character’s story arc. Every so often, as Nikki exits The Friend Zone and into “Bear, I love you so, so, so, so, so much,” we see the sentient Nikki wrestling with this spell. This isn’t what she wants, no matter how many times she says “I don’t think I could live without you.”

Nikki turns to the camera for that movie prostitute look during sex — fake moans and pleas of devotion on a deadpan, get-this-over-with face, whenever they make love.

And as Nikki’s obsessive clinging turns dangerous for herself and everyone else, Bear begins to grasp just what he’s done, why he can’t admit what he’s done and what he can’t do about it now. Because once Nikki starts with the explosive screams of despair at Bear’s every departure (she duct tapes the front door shut), once she makes a public scene or three or four and once she turns to incredibly violent self-harm and threats to others, Bear knows the die is cast.

Nikki? She can’t “live without you,” but she sure as hell can’t live this life she didn’t chose, either. Live with that, buster.

Barker leaves Nikki in the literal shadows for Bear to witness her descent into darkness. We witness one public meltdown by simply hearing Nikki’s off-camera deranged shrieks and we see how others at a party react in shock and confusion at what she’s become.

There’s something here for many a college-age teen to chew on — young women who identify with life choices already seemingly out of their hands, guys grasping the damage that obsessive focus on one person can cause, with guilt, regret and terror underscoring every recognizable young person foible and mistake borne of a lack of life experience.

Take away the whole supernatural element — treated comically as store clerks and wishing willow “company” hotline operator alike shrug off culpability for this deadly nightmare they’re selling for $6.99 — and there’s romantic baggage here that could make anybody at any age blush at recalling their romantic history.

Who was using whom? Who knew “devotion” has its limits and “forever” is a life sentence? We have no perspective at that age, but why should anybody take any of that seriously when they’re young?

“Maybe you’d better” is the lesson of this, the latest “smart” horror hit in a genre at long last valuing sophistication over sequels.

Rating: R, graphic, bloody violence, drug abuse, sex and profanity

Cast: Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless and Andry Richter.

Credits: Scripted and directed by Curry Barker. A Focus Features release.

Running time: 1:48