Building the Horror and Humanity of Obsession with Filmmaker Curry Barker

Watch the full conversation below!

For filmmaker Curry Barker, the idea behind Obsession began in the most unexpected way possible, watching an episode of The Simpsons with friends where Bart has a monkey paw wish which goes awry. What started as a passing thought about wishes gone wrong eventually became the foundation for a horror film that explores love, control, denial, and the terrifying consequences of emotional imbalance.

“I knew I wanted to tell a story about a guy who was obsessed with a girl or a girl who was obsessed with a guy,” Barker explained. “That Simpsons episode really kind of cracked the code for me, it’s about a wish that goes wrong.”

What intrigued Barker most was the emotional horror embedded within the premise. Rather than focusing purely on supernatural mechanics, he became interested in the unsettling idea of wishing for someone to love you and the moral and psychological devastation that would follow.

One of the film’s most distinctive elements is the “One Wish Willow,” the triangular retro-styled object that grants the story’s catastrophic wish. Barker revealed that designing it became an intensely collaborative process with his mother, a graphic designer, as they searched for a timeless aesthetic inspired by vintage packaging from across multiple decades.

“We wanted to make it timeless,” Barker said. “The triangle shape was such a big realization for us… it was a great mother-son thing that we did together.”

While Obsession ultimately evolves into psychological horror, Barker was adamant that the relationship at the center of the story feel grounded and emotionally recognizable. He intentionally built the early sections of the film around familiar romantic comedy rhythms and relationship dynamics before slowly twisting them into something deeply disturbing.

“It was important to me that there was a story besides just a horror movie,” he explained. “There’s push and pull like there is in a real relationship, stripping away the magic was really important to me.”

That balance between grounded emotion and escalating genre horror became central to the film’s tone. Barker frequently uses comedy as a deliberate tool to lull audiences into comfort before sharply shifting into unsettling territory.

“It’s the ultimate tool,” he said of comedy. “You don’t expect it to go there when we’re being playful and funny. That’s why I like to go there exactly then.”

Much of the unpredictability within the film comes from Nikki, whose emotional volatility constantly destabilizes scenes. Barker described her as intentionally unknowable, emphasizing how frightening unpredictability can be.

“The scariest thing is when you don’t know what someone is going to do next,” he said. “You don’t know if she’s going to leap forward and kiss him or smash him with flowers.”

Even with the supernatural premise, Barker remained fascinated by the psychology of denial, particularly through Bear’s perspective. As the warning signs around him become increasingly obvious, the film carefully tracks the emotional compromises he’s willing to make in order to preserve the fantasy that someone genuinely loves him.

Barker pinpointed a pivotal restaurant scene as the exact moment Bear fully understands what’s happening, and consciously chooses not to care.

“That’s him saying, ‘I don’t care if this is a wish or not. All that matters is that you like me,’” Barker explained. “That’s where it’s like, ‘Ooh, this is getting kind of freaky.’”

As both writer and editor on the film, Barker also approached screenwriting with an unusually visual mindset. Rather than separating writing and directing into different stages, he conceptualizes camera movement, edits, pacing, and shot transitions directly on the page while writing.

“I write with the intention that I’m going to direct,” he said. “There’s a lot of ‘camera pushes in on this’ or ‘we turn to reveal this.’ I’ve already kind of mapped out the cut in my head.”

The film’s most unsettling moments often come from what remains unseen. Barker repeatedly uses off-screen space and audience imagination to intensify suspense, trusting viewers to build their own terrifying version of events in the gaps between what’s shown.

“It’s kind of like a crazy answer,” he said about one particularly eerie sequence involving Nikki waiting motionless in the house all day. “What she’s doing is nothing.”

SPOILERS BELOW

By the film’s devastating climax, Barker wanted the story to evolve into something tragically romantic, “a Romeo and Juliet of two very messed up people.” The ending hinges on the horrifying realization that Nikki’s ultimate wish would simply be for Bear to become just as obsessed with her as she is with him.

“They would probably live happily ever after forever,” Barker said. “As weird and creepy as it would be.”

That tension between love story and nightmare is ultimately what makes Obsession so effective. Beneath the supernatural horror is a deeply human story about loneliness, projection, denial, and the dangerous desire to be loved at any cost.

Q&A on the film Obsession with writer/director/editor Curry Barker. Moderated by Mara Webster.