Curry Barker is 26 years old. His previous filmmaking credit is a found-footage horror movie made for $800. And Obsession, his feature debut, is one of the most confident, unsettling, and genuinely impressive horror films to arrive in years.
That’s not hyperbole. That’s just what’s on screen.
Obsession follows Bear, a shy music store employee who snaps a supernatural toy called the One Wish Willow to make his childhood friend Nikki fall in love with him. What follows is exactly what you’d expect from a story like that, except it isn’t. Barker takes a premise that could have been generic in lesser hands and turns it into something that stays with you long after the credits roll.
Direction That Announces a New Voice in Horror
The filmmaking here is exceptional. And you sense it almost immediately.
From the moment the willow breaks, when Nikki appears in the doorway and Bear looks up, Barker’s control of the frame is immediately apparent. Nikki stands there in silhouette. No light on her face. Completely still. The audience knows what Bear wished for. Nikki doesn’t. That gap in knowledge, held in a single frozen image, creates an immediate, gnawing discomfort that the film never lets go of.
The use of lighting throughout is deliberate and precise. Barker keeps his characters in light and shadow based on what the audience should or shouldn’t be able to read from them. In a later scene, Nikki’s first visit to Bear’s house to apologise, Bear stands fully lit inside while Nikki remains in shadow on the porch. You hear her words but can’t gauge her expression. Then, mid-scene, she looks up and two small glints of light catch her eyes, like light reflecting off an animal in the dark.
It’s a genuinely remarkable image. It works because Barker earns it through composition and patience, not through a jump scare or a score sting. Watch the full review above and subscribe to FilmyFool on YouTube for more like this.
Inde Navarrette Is the Reason to Watch
You may have seen Inde Navarrette in 13 Reasons Why or Superman & Lois. Nothing in either of those prepared you for what she does here.
The performance operates on multiple registers at once. Her body language, her facial expressions, the micro-transitions between emotional states, all of it is precise in a way that most actors with far more experience can’t pull off. There’s a scene in a restaurant. That’s all that needs to be said. Watch how she holds a particular expression during a dialogue shift and how the camera captures the exact moment it changes. It’s the kind of acting that makes you rewind immediately.
What makes the performance land is that Barker frames her in ways that force the audience to work. You’re often reading her through shadow, through reflections, through the edges of frames. That distance creates its own unease, and Navarrette fills it completely.
Sound Design That Gets Under Your Skin
Obsession is not a film built on jump scares. That said, it delivers them, and they land harder than expected. Because of this, the sound design deserves particular attention.
Barker uses sound to establish tension before the visual confirms anything. Red herrings are planted constantly in the frame. You’re conditioned to expect a scare in a particular direction, and then it comes from somewhere else entirely. Or doesn’t come at all. The restraint is as effective as the payoff.
For a film that cost somewhere between $750,000 and $1 million to produce (flagging that figure is sourced externally from published reports), the technical execution here is remarkable. This is not a film that feels small. It feels precise.
See It in Cinemas. Don’t Wait.
Obsession is the kind of film that benefits enormously from a cinema environment. The sound design, the controlled darkness, the communal experience of not knowing what’s coming, all of it amplifies what Barker is doing. An OTT watch on a laptop or a phone will simply not be the same.
This is a director announcing himself loudly. Barker has already signed on for two follow-up projects (flagged as externally sourced), but Obsession alone is enough to mark him as someone to watch.
If you’re a fan of horror, psychological thrillers, or simply good filmmaking, there is no reason to skip this. It’s in cinemas now. Go.
Final Word
Obsession is the real thing. Barker directs with a confidence and visual intelligence that most debut filmmakers don’t find for several films. Navarrette’s performance is exceptional. The craft, the lighting, sound, and framing, is exceptional. The film itself lingers in a way that only the best horror does.
Don’t miss it.
For more film reviews and pop culture coverage, head to filmyfool.com. If you enjoyed this review, you might also want to check out the FilmyFool Rewind on Detective Byomkesh Bakshy, another film that uses visual restraint as a storytelling tool, or the breakdown of what makes Dial M for Murder still work seventy years on.
