Curry Barker’s ‘Obsession’ Is Certified Fresh and Critics Are Calling It Horror’s Best Debut in Years
Horror has a long and well-documented habit of discovering its most thrilling voices in the most unlikely places. From Jordan Peele’s sketch comedy roots to Zach Cregger’s improv background, the genre keeps gravitating toward filmmakers who bring an outsider’s sensibility to the form. The latest director to follow that path is Curry Barker, a YouTube sketch comedian whose second feature has been almost universally applauded by critics, many of whom have hailed it as one of the best films of the year regardless of genre.
‘Obsession’ is a supernatural horror film written, directed, and edited entirely by Barker, following Bear, played by Michael Johnston, a music store employee who buys a supernatural toy and wishes for his childhood friend Nikki, played by Inde Navarrette, to fall in love with him. The wish works, but not in the way Bear intended, as Nikki becomes consumed by a violent, all-consuming obsession that spirals far beyond anything he could have anticipated. The film was made on a budget of just one million dollars and features supporting performances from Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter.
‘Obsession’ premiered during the Midnight Madness block at the Toronto International Film Festival in September 2025 and immediately began building substantial word-of-mouth among horror audiences. That early momentum has now crystallized into one of the most striking critical receptions a genre film has seen in recent years, with the film earning a 95% Certified Fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes alongside a matching 95% audience score from more than 250 verified ratings. Metacritic has assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, placing it in what the site categorizes as universal acclaim territory.
Reviewers have been quick to draw comparisons to horror’s most celebrated recent debuts, with IndieWire’s Christian Zilko writing in his B+ review for IndieWire that the film is proof the influence of directors like Cregger is still very much shaping what ambitious genre filmmaking can look like today. The Rotten Tomatoes critical consensus describes the film as “dauntingly disturbing while also skillfully amusing and thrilling,” praising the way it transforms a familiar premise into something genuinely unsettling.
Much of the critical attention has centered on Inde Navarrette’s performance, which has been described across dozens of reviews as a genuine career-defining breakthrough. Writing in The Hollywood Reporter, Frank Scheck described her work as virtuosic, capable of inducing both terror and sympathy simultaneously, and suggested the role would ensure plenty of future opportunities for the young actress. Other critics noted that Navarrette’s physical performance alone would generate nightmare fuel for years to come, with her ability to shift between opposing emotional states forming the emotional spine of the entire film.
Barker came to the project after his 2023 YouTube short ‘The Chair’ caught the attention of producer James Harris, who reached out hoping to adapt the short into a feature, only for Barker to pitch ‘Obsession’ instead. Jason Blum later joined as executive producer under the Blumhouse Productions banner, and the film was ultimately picked up for theatrical distribution by Focus Features. Barker also insisted on editing the film himself, and a particularly brutal scene had to be trimmed by several additional hits in order to avoid receiving an NC-17 rating.
‘Obsession’ is now in theaters, and with its critical momentum showing no signs of slowing, the conversation around Barker and Navarrette as names to watch is only growing louder. If you’ve caught it already, we want to know whether Navarrette’s performance hit you the way critics have been describing, or whether the wish-gone-wrong premise took the film somewhere you never saw coming.
