Curry Barker dropped out of film school, built a YouTube following making sketch comedy for free, shot his debut horror film for $800 — and is now one of the most sought-after genre directors in Hollywood. With Obsession opening to $14 million at the domestic box office this weekend, the 26-year-old filmmaker sat down to walk through how a novelty store trinket became the horror story of the year.
Barker’s creative partnership with Cooper Tomlinson, who appears in Obsession, dates back to film school, where the two met before deciding to leave and pursue filmmaking independently. After dropping out, they launched the sketch comedy brand “That’s a Bad Idea,” building an online audience that became the foundation for everything that followed.
That foundation cracked open in 2024 when Barker’s microbudget found-footage debut Milk & Serial went viral, turning heads and landing him representation at United Talent Agency. Obsession, his follow-up, cost $1 million and premiered at the Toronto Film Festival, where it sparked a bidding war between Focus Features, Neon, and A24 — with Focus prevailing.
The film follows Bear (Michael Johnston), a music store employee with a long-suppressed crush on his coworker Nikki (Inde Navarrette), who impulsively uses a $6.99 novelty item called a “One Wish Willow” to make her fall in love with him. The consequences spiral from darkly comic to genuinely terrifying. Barker said he cast Johnston partly on the strength of his voice alone — describing it as emotionally textured and carrying a subtle, essential edge of darkness that made him right for a character requiring both vulnerability and unease.
One scene involving the character Sarah was graphic enough in its original cut to risk an NC-17 rating in the United States, forcing Barker to pull back to preserve the film’s broader release. Reviewers noted his background as a YouTuber and sketch comedian shapes his rhythm as a director — cutting his own films to a destabilizing, off-kilter pace rather than traditional genre setups.
Jason Blum, who served as executive producer, has called Barker one of the most exciting emerging voices in horror. Barker described Blum’s support as deeply meaningful and confirmed the two plan to continue working together on future projects.
That next project, Anything But Ghosts, is a Blumhouse production starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Aaron Paul, currently in post-production. Barker is also set to write and direct A24’s reimagining of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Having earned roughly fourteen times its budget in a single weekend, Obsession has firmly established Barker as a box office force in the horror space.
