Ironically, Curry Barker’s debut studio feature, Obsession, has inspired just that: an obsessive fanaticism and discourse that continues to grow in its third week at theaters. Outlets have breathlessly reported how the film is set to earn 100 times its budget (a modest $750,000), and horror maestro Jason Blum himself, an executive producer on the project, took to socials to exclaim, “Obsession is the ONLY wide-release horror film on record to grow in its second weekend at this scale — $22.4M, up 30% over opening. This doesn’t happen in horror.”
Much of the fanfare around Obsession comes by way of its Gen Z-led creative team, whose work inspired a bidding war out of TIFF (it sold to Focus Features for $15 million, the highest price for a genre film in festival history, and saw Blum hop on as EP post-premiere). The flick features newcomers Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette as Bear and Nikki. After the former makes a wish with a kitschy One Wish Willow toy asking for Nikki to love him “more than anyone in the fucking world,” the plea comes true, to horrifying, obsessive consequence.
They’re joined onscreen by Cooper Tomlinson, Bear’s exasperated friend and Barker’s IRL comedy and filmmaking partner, dating back to the YouTube days that earned Barker his first studio meetings. The 26-year-old fleshed out his crew with a likewise green collection of creatives working production, cinematography, casting, and many of whom are moving right along with him to Anything But Ghosts.
The latter has already wrapped filming, also counts Blum as an EP, and was co-written by and co-stars Barker and Tomlinson, back in their comedic register as two scam-artist ghost hunters who encounter a real poltergeist. After that, Barker will dive into an A24-backed Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot.
When we speak, he seems most struck—not by the box office records or fervid interpretations of his work—but by the sheer speed with which he’s gone from uploading $800 slashers on YouTube to helming the reboot of a $252 million series, before his first project has even exited theaters. “I’ve been offered IP that you wouldn’t even believe,” he remarks candidly. When it comes to the strength of his work, though, Barker is cool and confident as ever. “I don’t want to sound cocky or anything,” he laughs, but it’s hard to do so in the midst of these kinds of results. We caught the filmmaker as he watched the box office returns roll in, for a conversation about the surreality of being the most popular new kid in Hollywood.
How are you feeling now that the movie is out? People have had a bit of time to go see it.
It’s pretty crazy. The movie has a lot of legs because it got like $3.6 million at the box office yesterday. I’ve never been a part of a box office anything before. It’s crazy to track the movie and say, “How much money are we gonna make today?” It’s a different part of the process I never really thought about.
Is there anyone that you’re looking to for advice on navigating this part of the process?
Zach Cregger, I’ve talked to a bunch. Ari Aster has been really helpful for me, and texted me. I was more curious about what their process is and how they write a script. Everybody’s so different, so I’m always curious about, Do you outline, do you not outline? These directors have been on way bigger sets than I have. So what is it like when the budgets are huge? It’s nice to have people in my corner.
New opportunities are opening up. People want to talk to you about the film. Are you enjoying riding that wave, or is it time to slow down and do one project at a time?
It’s an overwhelming thing that’s happening to me right now, where it almost seems like I can do whatever I want. I’ve been offered IP that you wouldn’t even believe. People have been reminding me of a script that I may have been working on a few years ago. Like every single person that I’ve ever wanted to talk to is reaching out, and it’s crazy because it’s people that I’ve looked up to since I was a kid, people that my dad is a huge fan of. [I’m] just screenshotting texts and sending them to my dad or or my mom and being like, “Look who just texted me.”
But I really have to be careful because with great power comes great responsibility, and I just wanna make sure that I’m picking the right things that are for me and choosing the right career path. I just want to keep my head down and work on the things that excite me the most.
What is that thing that makes it feel like a good project to you? What drew you to Texas Chainsaw?
Well, Texas Chainsaw is something I’m really, really excited about, and I have a take on it. The series is kind of dear to me, so that was a no-brainer. But I’m also working on my originals, and I’m very heavy in Anything But Ghosts right now. I don’t think anyone could have anticipated the number of opportunities that are being offered to me now, and it’s powerful to say no, but it’s also not like I’m trying to.
I don’t wanna become the IP guy either. I’m really excited to do Texas Chainsaw and then I could hop in and do another big IP that everyone would be excited about, but I wanna continue to do my originals, which is what got me where I am.
What do you make of all the interpretations of Obsession now that people are getting online and talking through it? I’ve seen you say it’s a film about earning love and putting yourself out there. Other people have said it’s about consent, case closed.
My For You page is just people reacting to Obsession at this point. I literally can’t escape it, and so I’ve seen the good, the bad, the ugly. I’ve seen it all. I’ve seen people that have talked about how there’s propaganda with this movie, in a pretty negative way, saying it’s political and making men the bad guy. It’s so silly to hear people have theories of that.
Ultimately, I wanted to tell a story that started conversations. I don’t know if I set out to start any specific conversations, but I just liked the idea of writing something that was deeper than just surface level. I like to write characters that are more morally gray than just heroes. It would have been a lot more lame of a movie, in my opinion, if Bear just had done the right thing the whole time.
It struck me as an interesting conversation to see a male director weigh in on—this relationship between men and women right now. What made you want to wade into those waters?
I don’t know if there was any specific thing that made me want to wade in on the waters. I mean, we’ve seen stories of “being careful what you wish for” for so long. We’ve even seen this story of a love potion, forcing someone to love you, in fiction books like Harry Potter. These stories have been told. I was just intrigued by the idea of, What if we took that story to a 10? What are the types of things that people would be dealing with? Obviously, when you take someone’s choice away, you’re taking away their autonomy, so it just naturally deals [with those themes]. It’s not like I was setting out to do that.
As people are coming up with these interpretations, do you find yourself liking being hands-off, or do you want to get into the conversation that people are having?
I like being hands-off. It’s written to be hands-off. It’s observational, and that’s it. It doesn’t tell you how to feel, it doesn’t point the camera at the answer, it just presents something in front of you, and you can choose how you feel about it. Same thing about the One Wish Willow: It doesn’t hold your hand or tell you where it came from or how it works, really. It’s not important.
I wanted to ask you about the team that you put together on this project. You have a fairly young team, people that you’ve worked with for a while, and that you’re taking into the next projects. What do you like about that kind of configuration? Having a bunch of people who are doing this for the first time, getting acclimated, and moving from project to project together?
It’s the best thing in the world. It’s so much more fun to move up with people than to move up alone. My DP [Taylor Clemons] is now very sought after. Haley [Nicole Johnson], the producer, is now very sought after. Inde Navarrette is obviously very sought after. Michael is very sought after. Cooper [Tomlinson] is getting movie offers, and it’s so cool to start with people that are all on the same level, growing up together in this movie. Growing up is the wrong word. We’re all, like, blowing up at the same time.
Do you feel like you’ve come into your own as a director? Or on day one, were you like, “I’m here to rule the set”?
I don’t want to sound cocky or anything, but I think day one. I’m very specific. I have a very strong vision for what I want, and that’s not because I think I’m better than everybody. I just know what I want the movie to be from day one, and if I didn’t, then I wouldn’t be a very good director.
Confidence helps lead. Do you feel like, after the response to Obsession, you’re taking a different kind of confidence into how you want to roll out Anything But Ghosts?
If anything, it’s actually just intimidated me more—actually living up to my own self now. It’s like, Oh shit, like what have I done? I don’t think I set out to make such a conversation starter. I just hope my movies continue to. I definitely never will make something super shallow. I don’t think I’m capable of it. I know that there will always be a level of heart and messaging in my films, but my next movie is very fun. It’s not nearly as deep as Obsession, so I guess I worry about not disappointing people. They’ll expect the same thing, and it’s not the same thing, but it’s exciting. I don’t wanna do the same thing over and over. That’s boring for me.
You’re in a wave of new blood horror filmmakers. Is there something that excites you about the genre right now?
I was just talking about this with some friends. It’s so funny nowadays that you have people like Christopher Nolan, or Bill Hader and I have been emailing back and forth, now, and he’s like, “I wanna do a horror movie [next].” We’re no longer in the days where horror is something you do to start your career and then you finally get the money that you want, and you go make a big action movie. I actually believe that horror is the goal for a lot of people, and I love the genre.
It allows me to do whatever I want, really. There’s no rules in horror. You can make a romantic comedy, but the moment someone dies, it becomes a horror movie, so might as well make the horror version, you know what I mean?
Are you looking around at other people around your age, seeing what they’re doing, and how what you’re doing fits into that?
I’m a big horror movie audience member. I watch as many horror movies as the next, and so, if I like something, I’ll tell all my friends to check it out. I’m actually kind of turning on my producer brain at this point in my career because I might start wanting to champion other filmmakers and produce stuff with them, at a point where I can do that.
Is there a rumor you’d like to start about yourself early on in your career?
There are already so many rumors of things that aren’t true, I don’t even want to say anything cause then it becomes even more real. I’ll just say that right now, all I’m focused on is Texas Chainsaw, and Anything But Ghosts, and anything else that you’re hearing is just people saying things. It doesn’t mean that those things weren’t talked about or even offered to me, but I’m not focused on anything except for those two projects right now.
You want fewer rumors in your life. You said you’ve had a lot of people reaching out, you’re screenshotting DMs. Can you tell us your favorite note that you’ve gotten from someone?
Tim Robinson reached out. Well, I reached out to him, and then he reached out back. He’s awesome. The Chair Company is so good. Jim Gaffigan reached out. He said he could play my dad in a movie cause he looks really funny like me. This one’s really random, but it’s really cool to me. Dominic Fike, I’m gonna be meeting him next week. I’m a huge, huge, huge fan of Dominic Fike’s music. That’s the artist that I literally listen to the most on my phone, and so you can start the rumor that Dominic Fike and I are best friends. It’s not true at all.
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