“OBSESSION” PRECURSORS : CURRY BARKER’S SHORT FILMS
ON YOUTUBE!
By
Tom Lavagnino
The first thing I did, after seeing OBSESSION, was Google: “Is Curry Barker related to Clive Barker?”
Although the answer is “no,” the horror bonafides of both scare progenitors are truly off the hook (and welcome back from your tenure as a Carthusian monk if you haven’t heard about OBSESSION and witnessed its wholly unanticipated impact on the 2026 zeitgeist).
The movie’s success -– critically, financially, and culturally –- isn’t simply a shot in the arm for “elevated horror.” It also reps a watershed moment for horror fans seeking a theatrical experience that doesn’t traffic in the rote jump-scares, music stings, and “final girl” tropes that have become the lazy bedrock of latter-day “Hollywood studio” horror.
I loved OBSESSION with unabashed admiration, and the movie’s super-smart narrative attack prompted me to check out some of Curry Barker’s earlier horror shorts –- many of which are viewable on both YouTube and Barker’s own web site “That’s A Bad Idea.”
First Up : Running a cool five-minutes-and-change, HEAVY EYES reps a perfect gateway drug to experience Barker’s sensibility. Written and directed by Barker, the story couldn’t be simpler: Teen-aged Seth aches with anxiety as he sits at his computer penning his “cover letter” for a college application. His disquietude snowballs, taking on a tactile, otherworldly, horrific dimension (“hospitable” actually isn’t all that different from “hospital” -– right?) until a devastating reveal, at fade-out, that (while slightly flat-footed in execution) wickedly pulls the rug out from under both Seth and the audience with an unexpected sci-fi twist.
“Seth” is played by Barker himself, in a terrific performance that helps explain why this young film-maker has been cast as an actor elsewhere (he appears, incongruously, in an episode of IT’S ONLY SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA!) and how the genius thespian chops showcased in OBSESSION (and Barker’s other short films) are always, top to bottom, a cut above the norm. This is a director who not only knows how to act, but who understands the process of getting killer performances out of talented actors playing killers!
WARNINGS, written and directed by Curry, opens with “Sean” (again played by Curry) discovering an anonymous note-on-his-car that says, simply, I’M BEGGING YOU TO STOP. WTF? Further creepy notes-to-Sean escalate in threat and intensity, with the theme of paranoia — beautifully choreographed over the course of nineteen minutes -– dovetailing with dispatches-from-beyond (that all read like platitudes turned inside out — PLEASE DON’T DRIVE YOUR CAR, DON’T TRUST YOUR FRIENDS, and DON’T TRUST DEATH chief among them).
Again, the visual acuity of Barker’s direction, here, is phenomenal, eking out every drop of psychological unease imaginable. The acting, too, is sensational –- especially the give-and-take between Haley Fitzgerald (“Viola” in OBSESSION) and Cooper Tomlinson (Barker’s long-time collaborator, who essayed the unforgettable “Ian” in OBSESSION).
Curry also wrote and directed THE CHAIR, the most obvious precursor to OBSESSION of the bunch, with its protagonist Reese (played by Anthony Pavone, “Reggie” in OBSESSION) bringing home a random chair, found on the street, on the occasion of the six-month mark of his relationship with live-in girlfriend Julie (Haley Schwartz, who’s fantastic). He likes the chair, she doesn’t, and the succeeding narrative (and upholstered seat) work brilliantly together as a metaphor for the difficulty two people can have living with each other –- and enduring each other’s medical/psychological personalities and proclivities. When Julie accuses Reese of suffering from Alzheimer’s (to explain away some of his weirdly untethered rantings), and when Reese counters by lodging complaints of his own at Julie, it almost feels like the first draft of OBSESSION come to life.
Okay, so. If you dug OBSESSION, and you’re interested in further dives “into the mind of Curry Barker” (or the mind of Clive Barker, his spiritual –- if not actual — cousin!), I must wholeheartedly recommend these horror shorts: a holy trinity of scares, poignancy, and thematic resonance that you won’t soon forget.
