Horror cinema remains capable of turning micro-budgets into box-office giants and small-time creators into filmmakers to watch. Case in point: Obsession.
Not only are YouTubers beginning to seriously colonize the horror genre, but they are also cashing in there. In 2016, David F. Sandberg struck gold with Lights Out, the feature-length adaptation of his short that grossed nearly $150 million on a budget estimated at under $5 million.
More recently, Kyle Edward Ball managed to release worldwide an experimental found footage feature (The House), the Philippou brothers aka RackaRacka made a name for themselves with just two feature films (The Hand and Bring Her Back), and Kane Parsons aka Kane Pixels is gearing up for a breakout with Backrooms, adapted from his own web-short series.
Now it’s Curry Barker’s turn, the videographer who rose to prominence with a sketch channel called That’s a Bad Idea, to try his hand on the big screen. Obsession hit theaters on May 13, 2026 in France and May 15 in the United States. And for him too, it’s a success.
Obsession rentable
Bolstered by rave reviews and strong word-of-mouth, Obsession nonetheless began from modest beginnings. Curry Barker couldn’t land a distributor for his first self-produced feature, Milk & Serial, and ended up releasing it on YouTube. He fared better with the second film, but was given a microscopic budget, estimated at under one million dollars by The Wrap.
That budget was even $750,000, roughly half the first Insidious ($1.5 million in 2010), though still far from the micro-micro-budget of The Blair Witch Project ($35,000 to shoot but at least $200,000 in the end for post-production) and the first Paranormal Activity ($15,000 to start, but ultimately well over $200,000 for the same reasons). It remains pocket change by horror-film standards. And that’s where festival magic kicked in.
Selected for the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival, Obsession made a striking impression there. So much so that it sparked a full-blown bidding war for distribution, ultimately won by Focus Features, which paid a modest sum of $15 million. The machine was in motion. After the premiere, Jason Blum, the American producer whose career owes much to the margins of Paranormal Activity, came aboard the project.
Obsession was already a little success story as it began lighting up multiplexes, riding a victorious festival circuit. Yet the general audience isn’t always aware of the economical tricks the team had to deploy. That didn’t stop it from becoming a triumph of a film.
For its opening weekend, it climbed to the third spot at the North American box office, behind Michael and The Devil Wears Prada 2, and ahead of Mortal Kombat 2. With only 2,615 screens (versus more than 3,500 for its top-five competitors), it pulled in $17.1 million. Two days later, it had accumulated $23.7 million. And if you add the international tally, it pushed past $31 million, with several markets not yet counted. In France, for instance, it drew 207,638 moviegoers in just over a week.
A bright career indeed awaited the film—and its director. Even before TIFF, Barker started work on a new feature, Anything But Ghosts, with active support from Blumhouse. This time, he had $5 million at his disposal. The shoot, featuring Bryce Dallas Howard and Aaron Paul, has wrapped in Vancouver. The premise: two con artists posing as paranormal investigators confront real ghosts.
Supreme consecration: the filmmaker was tapped by A24 to revive the unstoppable Texas Chain Saw Massacre saga, with the coolest studio of the moment (Hereditary, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Drama) having acquired the rights. Indeed, horror cinema is thriving for Barker.
