Curry Barker’s debut feature film, Obsession, has a pretty apt title. On the festival circuit, it’s been a huge hit. People who’ve seen it are kind of obsessed. Now that it’s out and reaching the masses, that obsession is about to spread, and for good reason.

Obsession Review

Stop me if you’ve heard this before: there’s a former sketch comedy writer/actor who’s pivoting into feature-length horror films. It’s not just Jordan Peele, but Zach Cregger fits the bill, too. Now, Curry Barker is etching his name into that book, and he’s doing an excellent job.

There’s obviously a direct connection between horror and comedy, otherwise this sort of phenomenon wouldn’t be happening all the time. But there clearly is, and these filmmakers have talked at length about that connection. Peele might’ve been the real pioneer, but Barker immediately made a name for himself as well.

He spoke beforehand about it requiring the same muscles to make horror and comedy. With comedy, you’re studying the psychology of why someone might do something and why it might be funny. With horror, you take that same study and twist it.

Obsession is a fantastic example of that through line between genres. There are so many scenes in the movie that could be lifted and placed into the comedy genre or into a different setting, and they’d be played for laughs. In the horror setting, they’re terrifying and unsettling, but they’d be laugh-out-loud funny in front of a studio audience.

Thematically, Obsession is incredibly clever. It gets at a real issue with this perceived male loneliness epidemic with a whip-smart script that doesn’t really hold your hand, but also won’t let you misinterpret anything. It walks the line of thematic and literal extremely well.

This all hinges on one thing: Michael Johnston’s performance. At times, it was uneven and felt a little one-note, but what he did in bringing Bear to life worked so well and perfectly captured what the film is all about. Bear is portrayed as an awkward romantic, but under the surface, he’s a manipulative coward.

Instead of just voicing his feelings for Nikki, played outstandingly by Inde Navarette (more on her later), even when presented a clear, golden opportunity to do so, he resorts to a potentially magic wish toy to get his way. And then even when he does get his way, he’s almost immediately uncomfortable with what’s going on.

He was obsessed with the idea of Nikki, but actually being with her and being the object of her obsession instead is too much for him. He doesn’t seem to really care about Nikki at all, and there’s a crucial scene in the middle that hammers home the themes and reveals the character’s true intention. He’s not a romantic at all. Bear is just controlling and misogynistic.

As for Navarette, there are comparisons to some of the iconic female horror performances being thrown around. Toni Collette in Hereditary or Lupita Nyong’o in Us, for example. It’s all justified, as she puts in a career-defining performance. She oscillates so effortlessly between genuinely unhinged and pathetically in love.

With that, the film also oscillates, but never veers into jarring territory. The tonal shifts are done so well that you almost don’t realize. There are scenes that make Obsession feel like a romantic comedy, something inspirational about the power of love. Then, with a jolt of clever sound design, it’s right back to horror.

The score does a lot of the heavy lifting there. In those romantic scenes that start to convince the audience that there’s perhaps been a genre shift, the score is hopeful, romantic, and inspiring. It feels like the light is shining on these characters for a moment before everything gets back to weird, and I do mean weird.

There are so many moments that will make your jaw drop. Obsession really goes there. Multiple times. It’s not so unpredictable, but it just takes it further than you might expect with a relatively simple premise. It gets really dark, especially by the end.

The one complaint I do think I have is the lighting. A ton of this movie is shot at night. That’s on purpose, as it adds to the atmosphere that eventually smothers you. But sometimes, the lighting just doesn’t work. A lot of times, things are left dark on purpose.

Nikki speaks to Bear from the shadows a lot, and a silhouette in a dark room saying weird things in the middle of the night is unbelievably creepy. There are just other scenes where better lighting would’ve helped. Otherwise, there are really no notes.

Conclusion

Curry Barker already has two more feature films coming after Obsession, one in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre franchise and another original horror movie. Based on this film, he’s absolutely a filmmaker to watch, and the horror genre is definitely in good hands with this crop of sketch comedians turned auteurs.