Obsessed (1997)

The story starts with twelve year old Carol Smith witnesssing the collapse of her parents' marriage. Her mother crazed with jealouse rage, berates her weak, philanering father who subsequently abandons them resulting to her mother's nervous breakdown. The years passed and we rejoin Carol, now a beautiful, self-contained seventeen-year-old young woman. she lives with her bed-ridden mother, younger brother Nick, younger sister Jiji, and loval servant Ester, in a comfortable suburban home. One thing is puzzling though as she is the only one to visit her mother's room. Her mother proves to be a bad-tempered, ungrateful old lady, but strangely clairvoyant, for despite the fact that she has no other visitor besides Carol, she seems to know what's going on in her daughter's life. Carol is working cladestinely as a dancer-hostess at Club andros- an unexpected job for a bright and talented university student. Carol's co workers. Pia, Lorna and Myrna often accompany her ot "Claire's Place" after work, and a close friendship has developed between them and Claire, the owner of "Claire's Place". Claire acts as a sort of "mother confessor" to the much younger Carol and appears to be relaxed, wordly-wise woman who disapproves of Carol's job. The plot thickens when Myrna is killed in a motel and the suspected killer, Albert Croft, goes on the run. Then Lorna is slashed to death in Carol's hideaway apartment, and Lieut. Casey of homicide listed her as one of the suspects. As the meeting between Carol and her mother generates into heated and screaming match, Claire urges Carol to find a new job and put her mother in a "home for the aged", which Carol strongly objected. Carol's troubles are compounded when her professor found out her being the most oftersought and most expensive companion of the night at Andros. The death of Pia, brutally slashed into recognizable pulp in an alley near Carol's house, further heightens her trouble. The film culminates as Carol, near mental collapse, is kidnapped by Albert and calls in the help of her friend Claire and explodes into a bitter climaz in a church bell-tower with the excorcism of the mother's spirit out of Carol's bodyn and it's entering into Claire's, who turns out to be a men and the real killer. We realize only at the end of the movie that we have seen is partially a "psycho-dream" in Carol's mind - an obsession of towering proportions. We realaize that not only the father, but also the mother had deserted Carol as a child, forcing her into a tough, soul-destroying life on the mean streets of the metropolis and that her friendship with Claire was a sick phony lie. As the film ends, we see that the hateful AIDS-infected Claire (Andrew) plunges into his/her death with the evil spirit of Carol's mother and a now life opens up for Carol - a new dawn of hope with help of Lieut. Casey and the love of Nick and Jiji, whose welfare had been her real obsession.