Curry Barker says the follow-up to his surprise hit has been both a relief and a grind: after the runaway success of Obsession, he returned to the director’s chair and lead role for Anything But Ghosts under a punishing schedule, and he told Deadline at TIFF that squeezing a dense script into a tight shoot pushed the production to its limits. The film also deepens a thread from his last project, and Barker says the overlap between the two pictures matters to how audiences are already talking about his work.
From a breakout hit to a sprint of a shoot
Barker’s first movie reached unexpected commercial heights, and the pressure to match that momentum came fast. For Anything But Ghosts he worked with Focus Features and Blumhouse Atomic Monster on a script of roughly 130 pages and a production window of just 26 days.
He was not only directing but also playing the lead, a combination that left little margin for error. Barker admits advisers urged him to trim the script—one collaborator suggested cutting nearly a quarter of the pages—but he chose to keep the material intact and attempt to film it all.
That decision meant compromising coverage and reworking the shot list on the fly. “We lost a lot of coverage,” Barker said, describing how planned setups were dropped to keep the schedule moving. The result, he said, was an intense, often improvisational shoot where every minute counted.
High stakes on a small budget
The director recounted one tense moment that illustrates the production’s tightrope act: a stunt where his co-star smashes a car window. The prop glass was fragile and available in only a single practical take. If the shot had failed, the team would have had no budget or time for a redo.
How obsession became horror
Barker also explained how he developed the central idea behind Obsession: what happens when fixation turns dangerous. He explored that through the mechanics of a “wish gone wrong,” asking whether the object of desire in such stories truly returns affection or something else entirely—a question he says many horror films skirt.
His approach to performance leaned toward realism. Barker told actors to avoid over-the-top possession tropes and instead ground the characters’ behavior in believable emotions—jealousy, need, and desperation—choices that, he believes, helped the film connect with a wide range of viewers.
The result has been a broad conversation in theaters, with audiences of different ages debating the characters’ motivations and allegiances. Barker noted that viewers sometimes recognize real-relationship dynamics in scenes that other critics call supernatural.
- Director/lead: Curry Barker
- Recent panel: TIFF DGA event marking one year since Obsession premiered
- Anything But Ghosts: 130-page script, 26-day shoot; produced with Focus Features and Blumhouse Atomic Monster
- Connections: Barker has said the new film shares a universe with Obsession
- Cast: Barker costars with Cooper Tomlinson; Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard also appear
- Release status: No official release date announced
Anything But Ghosts was written by Barker, who reunites with collaborators from his earlier film and continues to mix small-budget production choices with mainstream studio partners. The creative gamble—keeping a sprawling script intact while operating under severe time constraints—reflects a wider tension in contemporary horror filmmaking between ambitious ideas and limited resources.
As Barker navigates audience expectations shaped by Obsession’s success, the industry will be watching how the new film lands: whether the shared-universe hint deepens fan discussion or simply extends the director’s themes of fixation and consequence. For now, the movie remains without a release date, leaving critics and viewers to wait for the next chapter in Barker’s oddly intimate brand of horror.
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Hello, I’m Declan. I share my film reviews and discoveries with you to enrich your moviegoing experience.