Dread Central Digital Features give us the chance to spotlight the creators, projects, and talent pushing horror in bold new directions. These profiles allow us to dig deeper into the genre stories we can’t stop thinking about. For this special TIFF 2025 edition, I’m tapping into my latest Obsession by sitting down with Curry Barker, the rising talent behind my favorite film to screen at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival.

Barker’s Obsession stormed the festival, instantly establishing itself as the most important horror sale of the year. The rabid, seething, deliriously demented teen-horror title has already made industry headlines with a reported record-breaking $15 million sale to Focus Features.

Obsession marks a game-changing arrival from Barker, who cut his teeth as a cult YouTube sensation—in both comedy and horror arenas—before leaping into features. It’s not just the buzziest TIFF sale of the year; it’s the kind of debut that reframes where the genre is headed next.

Having attended the world premiere of Obsession myself and witnessed firsthand how the crowd reacted to the film, I wondered if its filmmaker, Curry Barker, was able to take in his surroundings that first time watching with an audience.

“That’s all I was doing,” Barker tells me. I’m his first interview of the day, and it’s a punishingly bright morning after Obsession‘s midnight screening just hours earlier.

“There were a bunch of times people laughed that I didn’t expect. Whenever he lays back down in the bed—I always thought that was funny when I wrote it. I was like, oh, wouldn’t it be funny if he just… just like asked, talked about it? Right? But I never expected it to get that big of a reaction. I think people are really smart nowadays, and they understand that’s not a normal thing to happen in a horror movie.”

Already famous for his digital comedy sketches, which he creates alongside longtime collaborator (and one of Obsession’s standout stars) Cooper Tomlinson, I’m curious if this kind of familiarity played a role in casting the film’s two excellent headliners, Inde Navarrette and Michael Johnston.

“No, I had never worked with them previously. We did a very rigorous casting search to find the person to play Nikki. And then the same thing with Bear. But it was one of those things where Michael came in, and it was very clear he was Bear. He was so awkward, and he had a real charm to him.”

Michael Johnston in Obsession

One of the film’s central themes is consent and bodily autonomy, tricky subject matter that the young filmmaker handles with care.

“I think that when you’re dealing with a movie that has to do with forcing someone to love you, yeah, it’s inevitable. The whole movie is kind of about consent—in the sense of controlling someone to love you, the premise itself, right? And really showing Bear is not necessarily a good guy.

I think that when you make it clear you’re trying to do something thought-provoking, and that it’s not just for shock value, it becomes a bigger conversation.”

It may not sound this way yet, but what makes Obsession so devastating is, in part, how much fun it has with you along the way. So, which horror movies had a similarly devastating impact on Barker.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre… specifically the one where they pick up the hitchhiker. And she gets in the car… and… I was way too young to watch that, and it stuck with me. That’s the kind of fear I’m trying to do—that level of fear, you know?”

I imagine Barker is referring to the 2003 remake of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. What’s interesting here—and true horror fans already know—is that this early-aughts revision of the 1974 original is regularly cited as the scarier of the two films. Blasphemous, maybe. But true? Possibly.
Hearing this version cited by Barker feels appropriate. The future of horror is bringing in his own references, authentic to his upbringing. And it’s arguably more punishing and hardcore than the sanctified original.

“Music is everything to me,” Barker shares when asked about his creative process. “It’s the most important thing to me. I was obsessed with music growing up—film scores. I would listen to movie soundtracks over and over again. When other kids would turn Spotify on to their favorite artists, I’d just be listening to the Kingsman score on repeat.”

“So I have so many different ones,” he says when I ask if he has any mixtapes for his film, pulling out his phone and opening Spotify. “I have my Obsession score playlist—music that inspired the score of the movie. And then I have the soundtrack playlist, the songs I thought would fit well in the film, or give the vibe of the movie. The score playlist is something I listened to when I was writing the film. A lot of it is atmospheric, tonal stuff.”

With Barker’s permission, we’ve assembled the songs from a few of his playlists into a Dread Central official mixtape. Check out the tracks on Spotify here:

Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession’ Mixtape

In my five-star review of the film, I wrote that the “back-to-basics Monkey’s Paw logic of Obsession’s script makes for a fun and familiar genre sandbox, but once you start to dig, you soon find the bone, flesh, and viscera of the mental illness you thought you’d left behind in your youth. It’s all still there, babe. It’s never going to leave, and it’s smiling at you.”

Horror fans, myself included, often live with anxiety disorders. And the genre can actually be a healthy outlet for facing unprocessed emotions. I’m curious where Barker sees himself on this chart.

“I definitely have anxiety,” he shares.

“I used to get panic attacks more. I don’t really anymore, which is good. But during COVID, I was panic-attack central. I’d never experienced one before. It was my first time, and I remember calling my mom because I didn’t know what was going on. I thought I was having a heart attack, maybe. I was like, ‘What is this? What is my body doing?’ Until you experience it, you don’t really know what people are talking about when they say panic attack.”

I feel for him. At the same time, I’m grateful the genre has found a new voice so singularly capable of adapting panic onto the screen. It doesn’t just make for terrifying and authentic horror—it helps anxious fans feel seen in a distinct and honest way.

Curry Barker’s Obsession is screening at Fantastic Fest in Austin next week, where the buzz is sure to avalanche even further. Keep your eyes on Dread Central for more news about the film and its maker as it unfolds.

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