YouTuber Curry Barker transitions to horror directing.
By Kristy Puchko on May 15, 2026
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Are you ready to get rattled? YouTuber turned feature filmmaker Curry Barker will get under your skin with Obsession, a gnarly horror movie that tackles the male loneliness epidemic with some rom-com awareness. After getting buzz following its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, this indie offering got acquired by Focus Features, distributors of Nosferatu, for a whopping $14 million. Now Hollywood is watching to see if Barker’s bold movie will be worth this big investment. But be warned, horror fans: Obsession is hard to stomach.
Obsession centers on a dangerous incel who thinks he’s a nice guy.
Written and directed by Barker, Obsession begins where most romantic comedies usually climax — with the male lead confessing his deep love for the female lead. However, Bear (Michael Johnston) is not a rom-com hero. He’s not funny, charming, dashing, or even all that interesting. When he’s not working at a music store with his few friends, he’s moping around the house he’s inherited from his grandmother and never really made his own. Surrounded by frilly old baubles, he can’t even keep his cat alive, as she kills herself by somehow getting into the late grandmother’s meds.
Moreover, he’s not confessing his feelings to his crush but practicing his monologue to some waitress, because any woman’s opinion of his love declaration will do, right? Simply put, Bear is a loser with no idea how to talk to women. Even though he has nothing going for him, he thinks he has a shot with Nikki (Inde Navarrette), a snarky, spirited aspiring writer whom he’s been obsessing over for years. However, rather than even trying to ask her out, this creepy coward turns to a novelty toy for help. The box promises snapping the “One Wish Willow” will give him whatever he wants. But asking for Nikki to love him “more than anyone else” will have consequences.
Immediately, the cool, smirking girl we met at bar trivia a scene before is a frenzy of emotions. She smiles and mopes and screams, only to occasionally look deeply confused and then horrified. But whatever this Nikki is, she is fixated on Bear. Imagine — it’s not what he had in mind.
Obsession plays with gendered tropes.
The “nice guy” is a cultural concept that plays into the misogynistic idea that women only want “bad boys,” leaving good men to be left lonely. The truth is that the term “nice guy” can be a flimsy façade for men who feel entitled to the women they desire, even if they have nothing to offer. (Cue Siobhan Thompson’s epic monologue from Dimension 20: Fantasy High!) These kinds of men are not nice, as they only give their female crushes something because they expect sex or love in return. They can’t conceive of a woman as a person who has her own desires. And this is the horror at the center of Obsession.
Bear might see himself as the romantic hero of his story, but from flubbing the heartfelt monologue (which is all about what Nikki’s done for him) out the gate, he is set up as an anti-hero. He uses the “One Wish Willow” like Rohypnol, slipping it into action at the end of a night out that wasn’t ending with the girl he wants in his arms. What didn’t occur to him in his reckless wishing is that by demanding such a major change in Nikki’s personality, he would change Nikki into someone he doesn’t recognize.
Nikki becomes the “crazy girlfriend,” often alienated and maligned in hushed tones. No sooner has Nikki started dating Bear than their circle of friends begins to gossip about her, accusing her of deception and leaving her out of hangouts. Barker’s script pushes the concept of the crazy girlfriend to harrowing extremes. Beyond her ferociously mercurial moods, Nikki also lurks in shadows, hisses strange things at night, and moves with bizarre physicality as if she’s made of nightmares. And yet as freaked out as he is, none of this stops Bear from having sex with her. The camera frames this like a rape scene, with a wide shot that has him thrusting away, his face unseen, while hers is blank, staring off and unengaged.
Obsession taps into the horror of dehumanizing women, but also relishes in gendered violence.
Props to Navarrette, who makes this cursed rape victim into a riveting terror. One moment she’s sulking so intensely it’s almost funny, pulling her frown past Florence Pugh levels. The next,