Obsession, the first theatrical feature from YouTube horror short maestro Curry Barker, scared the crap out of us. It tells the story of a lovesick young man who unknowingly unleashes the girl of his nightmares when he wishes his crush loved him “more than anything in the world.” Awkward situations, violent outbursts, and uncanny demonic moments ensue. We loved it! We got a chance to speak to Barker about achieving modern horror supremacy, fear of human faces, working with the tremendous Inde Navarrette, and about his upcoming job helming the Texas Chainsaw Massacre reboot.
Nerdist: Congratulations on the movie. I know you’ve been showing the movie for months it feels like now. How does it fee now that the movie is about to actually come out?
Curry Barker: Oh man, I can’t wait. I feel like it’s one of those things I’ve never experienced a movie coming out. You know what I mean? It’s a new thing that I’m excited to feel and it’s something I think I’m going to like it. I think I’m going to like the feeling of it tracking it probably. I don’t know; I actually don’t know what that feels like, so it’s probably nerve-wracking.
You’ve gotten to see it with a number of festival crowds and things like that. I mean, the reactions have been very positive, which has to be gratifying, but what was maybe the first or second screening of it we were watching with the crowd. What was the moment in the movie that you were like, “Okay, I think people are vibing with this movie?”
Barker: I’m really observant. I’m an observant person in my nature anyway. So I was observing people from the first 15 minutes trying to look around like, “Do I have their interest? Am I losing them?” And I feel like once you got to that car scene [the pivotal scene where the wish happens], I was like, “Okay, I think people are kind of locked in. ” But also we had a test screening early on that revealed a lot to me and we had them all write papers of stuff that they liked and didn’t like. And so that was really insightful for me and I just took it back into the editing room and really let it help me. But yeah.
I know “how did you come up with the idea” is a very lame question. But on the one hand, it’s a pretty straightforward kind of premise we’ve heard before, but it’s obviously turned on its head. So what was the sort of impetus for your take on this kind of, you get what you wish for kind of thing?
Barker: Yeah, I remember in the comment section when we first started, the trailer came out and the premise of the movie came out and people started talking about it. I remember in the comments there was kind of this attitude of like, “Oh, we’ve seen this before. Yeah, we need another, be careful what you wish for story,” which I try not to read those comments anymore, but I kind of was shocked because I was like, “Really? I haven’t seen this premise in a long time.” To me, this premise was like I was so excited to dive into something that really felt like it was uncharted territory.
It was surprising to me that people were saying this has been done before because the horror take hasn’t really been done on that. There was a Timmy Turner [The Fairly OddParents] episode maybe where he wished for a girl to love him, but no thing that I saw really took it there. There’s quite some interesting subject matter with Force to Love and nobody really seemed to take it there. And so I was excited as to where I could take this and how crazy she could go. And it felt like there were endless things that could happen, honestly.
I want to ask you as many questions as possible about Inde Navarrette, who is incredible in the movie, truly outstanding. I mean, not to give away to the readers who are going to read this, but she has to portray a person trapped inside her body for a good portion of it and little glimpses get out. How did you find that level with her and how much rehearsals did you have to do to get her to that point?
Barker: It was very, very specific. I had just done a short film called The Chair, and I had this character named Julie in it that’s the girlfriend character in that movie or short film. And she kind of does this thing where she snaps into different emotions and that was actually kind of the inspiration for this movie because I was like, as I’m coming up with this wish idea and this obsession idea, I’m like, “Oh my gosh, the thing I did in the chair, I could make the whole movie that. ” I got excited that I could do more of this snapping back into a new emotion and it’s really creepy. And so I showed her that as a reference. We watched movies and as references and I also showed her movies of things I didn’t want her to do.
Specifically, I would show her examples. I was like, “This is what the movie is not. Don’t do this. ” And it was very specific about never playing demon too much or angry possessed, but more just playing crazy jealous girlfriend or clingy desperation. So really just playing into the, what does your character want? My character wants Bear so bad, and that’s what you play.
I’ll just be real with you. This movie scared the s**t out of me. It was one of those where I got on the drive home I was like, “I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sleep tonight.” It was one of those. I did sleep. It was fine. Don’t worry about it. But it really got to me. I think one of the things that gets to me that I’ve noticed in some of your short film work as well is this sort of, as you mentioned in The Chair, it’s uncanny valley type stuff, but just using the human face. You’ve put so much of that in this. Is that something that scares you?
Barker: Absolutely, man. I mean, I feel like I can be scrolling on my phone at night and I can see many scary things and not be affected at all. Then you just come across this one thing that you’re scrolling and it scares the hell out of you. It’s usually a person saying something really weird and their face is just slightly off and then you’re like, “Oh my God.” And you have to turn the lights on. That’s the type of feeling that I wanted to capture so bad is this it’s human but it’s not quite human. A jump scare doesn’t get me anymore. What gets me is this creepy weird feeling. So that’s what I’m kind of chasing.
Congratulations on getting to take on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as your next project. Obviously you’ve had this growing kind of excitement about Obsession coming out over the last several months, but what was the process of getting to get to take on this huge horror franchise next?
Barker: I mean, it was a shock. I actually was looking at my text messages with Megan Lawless who plays Sarah and there was at Tiff at the Toronto International Film Festival, she sent me a text basically saying that A24 had just picked up the rights to Texas Chainsaw and she was like, “Remember you were just telling me that you would love to pick up an IP and you were telling me that Texas Chainsaw would be a good one and look at this. ” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I want it. “
A few months passed by and it was like, “Yeah, right, you’re not going to get it. Everyone’s pitching on this movie, you’re not going to get it. ” That’s what my manager told me, but he also was really persistent and kept going, but he was like, “You’re not going to get it. ” Then I get a surprise call from my manager and I’m like, “Hello?” And he’s like “can you step outside for a second?” And I was scared, like, “What’s going on? ” And he was like, “Would you actually want to do Texas Chainsaw?” And I was like, “Yes. Yeah. ” And so it was just a crazy … It wasn’t real until it was real.
Now it’s like I have to be careful what I say. I’m really trying to keep my mouth shut because I haven’t even written it yet and people are already asking me so many things. And I’m such a open book surprisingly sometimes because I’m actually a really private person, but then sometimes if I’m talking, I just go and go. So I can tend to say things that I don’t want to hold myself to something I said six months ago and then I’m like, “Well, I’m writing the script and this is actually a better direction and whatever.” And also people just have so many opinions, but yeah.
Well, that’s great. So I’ll put down that you’re using a McCullough 45 chainsaw and that’ll be what everyone says.
Barker: Now I’m stuck to it.
Obsession hits theaters Friday May 15.
Kyle Anderson is the Senior Editor for Nerdist. He hosts the weekly pop culture deep-dive podcast Laser Focus. You can find his film and TV reviews here. Follow him on Letterboxd.