Obsession (2025 Film): The Low-Budget Wish Horror That Took Off

Obsession is a supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Curry Barker, a YouTube comedian making his big-screen debut. It premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and reached cinemas in the United States in May 2026. By then it had become one of the most talked-about independent films in years.

The premise

The setup is simple and old-fashioned. A hopeless romantic called Bear wishes that his long-time crush, Nikki, would fall in love with him. The wish comes true, and it comes true in the worst possible way.

Nikki's affection arrives with a sinister edge. What begins as flattering attention hardens into neediness, possessiveness and something far darker. The story draws on the classic cautionary tale of a wish that gets granted to the letter, and critics compared it to the wish-fulfilment horror tradition.

The magic object at the centre is a charm called a One Wish Willow, and the film makes good use of the unsettling customer-service voice that goes with it. Barker voices that part himself.

From short film to feature

Barker made his name online. He is one half of the sketch comedy duo That's a Bad Idea with Cooper Tomlinson, and he went viral with microbudget found-footage horror, including the feature Milk & Serial. His short film The Chair then caught the eye of producer James Harris, who approached him about expanding it into a feature.

Barker had a different idea ready. He pitched Obsession, which he had conceived as a story about two people consumed by each other. The film was shot in Los Angeles over about 20 days, for well under a million dollars, with a cast of largely unknown actors.

Cast and characters

• Michael Johnston plays Bear, the shy romantic whose wish sets everything in motion.
• Inde Navarrette plays Nikki. Her performance became the film's calling card, and several critics singled it out as one of the year's best.
• Cooper Tomlinson plays Ian, Bear's friend.
• Megan Lawless plays Sarah.
• Andy Richter plays Carter.

Navarrette's Nikki quickly turned into a figure of fan discussion. Some writers even floated her as a potential modern horror icon.

A festival bidding war

Obsession sparked intense interest among buyers in Toronto. Focus Features beat rival bidders and acquired the film for a reported $14 to 15 million, which was said to be the highest price a genre film had ever fetched at the festival. Jason Blum's Blumhouse came on board as an executive producer, and Universal Pictures took on international distribution.

That is a huge multiple on a film that cost so little to make. It also meant Focus had a lot riding on a release date eight months away.

Box office and audience response

Expectations going into the opening weekend were modest, with forecasts of around $8 to 9 million in North America. The film opened at about $17.2 million and took an A- from CinemaScore, an unusually high mark for horror. For comparison, Get Out earned the same grade.

The real story was how long it kept going. In its fourth weekend it fell by only 7 per cent, which was reported as a record hold for a horror film at that stage. It soon passed $200 million worldwide and became Focus Features' highest-grossing film ever, overtaking the 2019 Downton Abbey film.

The final worldwide total is around $525 million. That makes it one of the biggest films of 2026 and, unadjusted for inflation, the fifth highest-grossing horror film of all time. It reached streaming at the end of June 2026 and returned to cinemas in October.

What critics said

Reviews were strongly positive. Many praised the way Barker blends comedy and horror, and the way the central relationship feels uncomfortably recognisable before it turns monstrous. Others picked out the night sequences, where Nikki becomes something close to a bogeyman, and the sound design.

Not everyone was won over. One critic enjoyed it as a series of gross-out set pieces but found it thin on substance once the adrenaline faded. Discussion of its themes of consent, control and loss of identity was lively, though, and the film deliberately leaves parts of Nikki's possession unexplained.

Key facts

What comes next

Barker's follow-up is Anything but Ghosts, a horror comedy starring Tomlinson, Barker, Violet McGraw, Bryce Dallas Howard and Aaron Paul. It is due on 7 May 2027 and is set in the same fictional universe as Obsession. Barker has hinted at links between the two, including a passing reference that seems to point to Nikki's fate.

Why it matters

Obsession shows how far a strong hook, tight control and a great central performance can go on a tiny budget. It also adds to the line of internet-bred horror filmmakers who have crossed into mainstream cinema. For viewers, it offers something rarer: a horror film that gets laughs, scares and arguments in roughly equal measure.