What a breath of fresh air in a time of commercial film and television – it is so refreshing to see creators and filmmakers who truly love and believe in their projects. Obsession emphasizes that point.
Curry Barker, who’s TikTok and YouTube famous for his short-form comedy skits with That’s a Bad Idea and horror short films, wrote and directed the box-office hit Obsession with a microbudget of $715k, recovering it tenfold with a worldwide gross earning of $148 million, both record-breaking and never seen before in cinema. The film is still in theatres across the world three weeks since its release. Gen Z audiences cannot get enough, directly disproving the claims of various CEOs and executives that audiences don’t want to go to the movies anymore.
From seeing the film myself, I can say that it has it all. An outstanding performance, tight writing, brilliant cinematography, production design, and soundtrack. It premises a ‘one-wish-willow’, a magical object that, when broken, grants you anything you desire but only once. Unfortunately for Nikki Freeman (Inde Navarrette), her friend Bear (Michael Johnston) wishes she loved him more than anyone else in the world. What it ends up becoming is a much-needed conversation of consent, autonomy, and what true love really is. Barker stretches this compelling story through the wringer, doing what many successful comedians do for their horror projects, and my gosh, does he do it brilliantly.
I think it’s just a testament to what a small budget guarantees: a cast and crew that genuinely and deeply care for the storytelling. Not only, it tells us that they trust their audiences will care for the story too, which is a sentiment that recent films don’t seem to share. It gave these small-time filmmakers, some who had a small establishment in the industry and an audience, Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson with their skit series, Michael Johnston as Corey Bryant in Teen Wolf and Inde Navarrette as Sarah Cushing in Superman & Lois, a spotlight on their talents and careers. One can only hope to see that this show does to them what the great success of Heated Rivalry did to Hudson Williams and Connor Storrie, both small, local actors who were thrust into fame after a deeply successful performance in their micro-budgeted TV show.
There is only one way to go from here, and the world cannot wait to see what these filmmakers achieve. Curry Barker and Cooper Tomlinson’s next horror project, Anything But Ghosts, starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Aaron Paul, is already in post-production, and talks of Barker revamping the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise are in the air. The whole world are gripping the edge of their seats.
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