FMC 250 : Obsession Written and Directed by Curry Barker

Full Episode Transcript
This episode of Filmmaker Commentary dives into the horror film "Obsession," discussing its surprising box office success, critical acclaim, and the intricate filmmaking choices made by writer-director Curry Barker, alongside other film and TV news.

Opening Discussion & Box Office Success
Reginald Titus Jr.: Filmmaker Commentary episode 250. Welcome to Filmmaker Commentary, where we cover movies with commentaries from directors who take the time to record them on Blu-ray and DVDs. We also give our detailed insights, so look out for spoilers. We discuss the latest in showbiz news along with movies and TV shows that we've been watching. So join Reginald Titus Jr., that's me, and Casey G. Smith, that's me, every week here on Filmmaker Commentary.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Welcome, welcome to another episode of Filmmaker Commentary. I'm Reginald Titus Jr., I'm joined with Casey G. Smith. Welcome back, sir.
Casey G. Smith.: Good to be back, sir.
Reginald Titus Jr.: And today we're talking about Obsession. Directed, written, and edited by Curry Barker. 2025? Or is that 2026?
Casey G. Smith.: See, I say I say 2026. That's when we watched it.
Reginald Titus Jr.: That's right. That's when it hit the theaters. Yeah. 2026. Boom. Um, wow, what a turnaround 'cause we watched it in theaters, it drops on Blu-ray and now we're covering it just in time for Halloween. All right. Um, budget and box office.
Casey G. Smith.: This is a good one. So, Obsession came in at an estimated budget of $750,000, not million, $1,000. As it was released mainstream on May 15th of 2026. It went on to gross worldwide $516.8 million.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Dollar, dollar bills, y'all.
Casey G. Smith.: That is a mega win.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I'd buy that for a dollar.
Casey G. Smith.: Indeed.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Wow. Um, this this one, we've we've covered the Obsession over the last few months, like back and forth. It's on our last episode of what we, well, not, would it be our last episode? No. It'll be episode 10 of what we've been watching when you talk about like at the theater, your experience in the theater for the second time. Funny story if y'all, uh, yeah, check that episode out. Um, so we've been, so like, just in the news. I I don't know if you covered it one one of the times in the news just about like performance at the box office in one of the episodes.
Casey G. Smith.: I'm pretty I'm pretty sure I did because it it, along with Backrooms, were doing some pretty pretty good stuff at the at the, well, right kind of right before the summer really kicked off, these things were they were making some noise and doing some good things at the box office.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Absolutely. So, um, I mean, after doing a film under a million dollars, and it goes on to make $500 million. That you could do what do you want? You've just written your ticket. What do you want? And hopefully he's gotten some back end on that.
Casey G. Smith.: That's what I was gonna say. I was like, I wonder, I I really I really do hope that he had some some back end.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I want I want I want more business information about this whole situation. I got a little bit, but he wants more.
Casey G. Smith.: And and for for those that might not know what we say back end, so when you are in the process of doing the business of making films, if you are a director, let's say it, I think I'll I'll assume that even the editor, producer, uh, writer, you'd fall, yeah, and above what they call above the line, um, as part of the budget. So they've got that money set aside and you are getting it, I'm assuming all of us up front. Uh, it may it may still come out on a schedule, but you're kind of at the very, very top of of the budget when it comes to, uh, getting paid for that. And that's like, okay, you you kind of will get compensated whatever your contract was, whatever was worked out for you by yourself or by your agent, whatever that looks like. But then on top of that, since every movie is in and of itself like its own miniature business, like a lot of them are under some kind of LLC, like their own miniature corporation, and as, you know, money's invested to make it, to promote it, to get it out there, deals are made to distribute it in different windows, in different spaces, whether that's your streaming services, your AVODs, your your physical media as well. And your deals all across the world, some, even actors or directors, might have a deal where they say, okay, once all the expenses have been taken into account and now that profits are coming in, they may be involved with some of the profit sharing, maybe they get a certain percentage of the profits. And those are what we mean by back-end deals.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Yeah, most famously, um, Blumhouse, how that's basically how they're able to keep their budget so low. Um, Jordan Peele's probably one of the ones that had a breakout hit. So, if I'm not mistaken, that budget was about $5 million or $3 million, something like that. But if everybody got the rate that they wanted, that budget would have been a little bit higher. Um, Jason Blum, he talked about how the directors, they uh, work for scale, basically. They're not getting their, well, I usually make $2 million a film or a million or whatever. He was like, they just get paid scale. And then, uh, they get to participate if it does well theatrically. And so Get Out performs blockbuster. Like everybody's talking about it. And so that's how they're he was able to participate on, and I think it's the gross, um, you can get a smaller percentage of the gross, um, and a higher percentage of the net. Not necessarily the sure, don't know the the details of his contract.
Casey G. Smith.: For sure.
Reginald Titus Jr.: But he did get to wet his beak.
Casey G. Smith.: He dipped my beak in it.
Reginald Titus Jr.: And horror is one of those genres where you can have that that kind of great return. You can make something for a low cost.
Casey G. Smith.: Absolutely.
Reginald Titus Jr.: And if it hits and tanks takes off, you can see some massive returns. So that's why I think back-end deals, I think tend to potentially work the best is probably with with horror.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Yeah, and action, if you can if you can make action cheaply, like, uh, Raid, like The Raid movies and stuff like that. If you can make 'em cheaply, you can do all right. Action horror, action horror. Um, did this film win any awards or are we still in the award, or we don't know yet?

Awards & Critical Reception
Casey G. Smith.: So, that's a great question. Uh, as far as awards go for Obsession, it went on to be nominated for multiple awards. And and since it's so early in the mix, as far as, uh, Academy Awards, that's still to be seen, that's still coming up in the spring. It has a couple of festival awards. The Emmys took place recently, if I'm not mistaken.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Oh, yeah, they did. I think your girl from Pluribus won.
Casey G. Smith.: Yeah, she, yeah, she did she did win. Um, but yeah, no, nothing, I don't think it was even nominated for any Emmys, at least from what I'm seeing here on IMDb. So, no nothing major just yet. But I think there is gonna be a push for, uh, for Indi, the young actress that played Nikki. I I think there is going to be a push for her to be nominated for lead actress role. That'll be cool.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Yeah, Indie. She's done some stuff I haven't seen before. Um, yeah, like it's seemed refreshing. Okay. Uh, what has been the sentiment so far? Because I've heard a lot of buzz. Filmmaker nerd, this director is a filmmaker nerd, love that. Um, but what's been kind of inconsistent? What's the sentiment?
Casey G. Smith.: Yes, for sure. Let me go to my handy Google overview here. It says Obsession, 2026, directed by Curry Barker, has received overwhelming critical acclaim and turned into a massive surprise box office hit, grossing over $480 million worldwide against a tiny budget of $750 $750,000 to $1 million budget. That's all that's why I always say estimated. Uh, the critical reception says, according to Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a certified fresh score of around 95% on over 130 reviews with a matching high audience approval rate. Metacritic averages a strong score in the 70s to low 80s, indicating generally favorable to praising reviews. Uh, as far as praise goes, reviews have widely lauded the film's tense, uncanny atmosphere, effective blend of dark humor and visceral body horror and fresh take on the classic Monkey's Paw.
Reginald Titus Jr.: A monkey? I didn't see a monkey in this movie?
Casey G. Smith.: Stand out performances, Indie Navarrette's chilling physical performance as Nikki, who transforms into a terrifying obsessive entity after a corrupted wish, has been universally signed out, uh, singled out, I should say, as the movie's defining triumph.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So, you're saying they liked it.
Casey G. Smith.: Yeah, he likes it. He likes it. Yeah, this this is one of those films, and we have these moments at times where we're really we're going to see something and we we gotta you gotta tell you gotta tell people about it.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Absolutely.
Casey G. Smith.: I I shared my experience with you. I shared it with my my my other buddy and we we seen it he's seen it twice like the first I mentioned this first time we went to see it and he brought his son. I was like, I didn't know you were bringing your kid. I would have I would have suggested something else. But he he was so invested that he went later that week to watch it again in theaters so he could so he could see the ending for himself. I'm like, man, and then and then we were having conversations and theories. Like, man, that's when you know you have something. When you're just bringing up people like, oh yeah, I saw that too. I when I got my copy of it at at, uh, movie training company and she's like, oh, have you seen this before? I was like, yeah, I've seen it twice. And uh, and then she was like, I was I was so scared after I watched it. She goes, I couldn't go. I thought yeah, I saw it in theaters by myself. And I'm not gonna lie, I went home and I was turning lights on. She's like, she's like, I couldn't I couldn't sleep that night. I was like, yeah, it's different when you like you're by yourself and then she is Nikki in the shadows somewhere.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I would have.
Casey G. Smith.: But yeah, this was this one hits different. It's like a, uh, I feel like it's it's a a new classic that has been created.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I agree. I remember, how did I? Saw the trailer. Oh, well, I'll I'll say my, um, had to go to the theater. I was like, I gotta go watch this. Uh, my kids had watched it. I mentioned this in another episode. They had watched it Out of anything, they they found it on the internet. So I'm like, dang, it's already on streaming? Impossible. Um, yeah, impossible. How is it already on on streaming? They found a little bootleg way to watch it. Uh, I found that out later. And then, um, I they shouldn't have watched it. Their mom fell asleep watching it with them. My 13-year-old was like, horrified, like, yeah.
Casey G. Smith.: It's right. They're right. Oh, yeah. Hey, rightfully so. This this I'm a grown man. I've seen plenty of horror films, but this one hit different.
Reginald Titus Jr.: It hit. It hit. Especially when you have good audio. Oh, man. The audio is what does it, man. It's great. It's beautiful. Went to the theater, watched it. I had to tell everybody about it. Told you about it. Told her. Go ahead and tell everybody. I said, you know, it's like you gotta give the speech. I know you don't like horror movies. You gotta give the whole speech.
Casey G. Smith.: Sound design. Let me preface this for you.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Yeah, yeah. I know you don't like horror movies, normally. But if you're just gonna watch a movie, this is the one to watch. I know you don't get high. I know this. I know you don't like going to the theater. I know you don't like going to movies. But you must go to the theater. And everybody that went to go watch it, hey, it had the same effect. I was like, see, right, right? You know, you're sharing notes, right? There's something about when it's when it's just done so well. And even as I went through and I'm taking notes, I I've I've got a lot of notes on this. I'm not gonna lie. Like every every scene, like there's so much going on. And it's it's specific, but it's also kind of meta. It's I'm like, man, there's a there's a lot here. And the performances like what Indi is doing, man, this is well done. Excellent. It is excellent. Excellent. But we'll talk about, uh, Obsession a little bit more here in a minute. But first, let's talk about TV news and movies watched.

TV News & Movies Watched
Casey G. Smith.: So, in the news, according to Variety, Spider-Man: Brand New Day overtakes Star Wars: Force Awakens as the highest-grossing movie of all time at the domestic box office. And currently sits at number three worldwide.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Worldwide. Who's number one worldwide? Titanic or something?
Casey G. Smith.: No, that's Avatar. Avatar. James Cameron, nonetheless. Yeah, Avatar is number one, the the two-point nine billion, or yeah, so Avatar, Titanic, probably?
Reginald Titus Jr.: James Cameron, nonetheless.
Casey G. Smith.: Endgame. Avengers: Endgame is the number two at 2.7, I wanna say. But it might overtake it with its its re-release this month, Avengers: Endgame Encore.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Suckers.
Casey G. Smith.: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But Avatar, Avatar did a re-release also a couple years back. So because Endgame had passed it up. And when they did the re-release, it passed up Endgame.
Reginald Titus Jr.: They'll keep doing it. We're gonna release it again. Yeah, Spider-Man's like, I'll release it again.
Casey G. Smith.: Well, well, well, yeah. But, so beyond that, in according to Deadline, Resident Evil breaks franchise opening records and even some kumes with a 108.3 worldwide opening.
Reginald Titus Jr.: People want to be scared.
Casey G. Smith.: Yeah, apparently. Had you seen the trailers for the Resident Evil film?
Reginald Titus Jr.: Uh, not recently. Um, I might have seen it in in one of these theaters. Um, what's the premise?
Casey G. Smith.: Uh, it's a guy who who has he is like almost like he's like delivering like a an organ almost, it seems like because he's got like a cooler and you can tell something important is inside of it. And he gets to a house and he knocks on the door and there's kind of noises happening whatever and he ends up he ends up he ends up going inside.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I did see this trailer. Actually looks good.
Casey G. Smith.: It did look it looked pretty creepy. We after and and this is kinda getting into like what what I've been watching, but I was at the theater yesterday and afterwards me and my buddies we were standing around talking. We want to stand normally we go outside the the actual physical theater building, but it's hot, it's Texas. So we were we were just standing outside the theater that we had saw the movie in. But we could hear all these sounds. We're like, what? And it was it was the Resident Evil movie now next door to us like, man.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Making money. That's the sound of money.
Casey G. Smith.: But yeah, so yeah, Resident Evil, it says here, um, the TriStar Constantine film, Davis film Resident Evil rang up a massive $108.3 million worldwide. Not only the best start of the franchise has ever seen, but also Zach Kreger's biggest start as a filmmaker, surpassing the $70 million worldwide report of last year's Weapons. So this is the same director of Weapons.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Oh, that's why. Okay, okay. That that makes me even more kind of interested to potentially check this one out. Yeah.
Casey G. Smith.: See in addition to the opening alone for Resident Evil, beats the global final of the original 2002 movie of $102.9 million, as well as the last title, the failed reboot Welcome to Raccoon City.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Yikes. I'm gonna go watching this one.
Casey G. Smith.: Yeah, I may have to check this bad boy out.
Reginald Titus Jr.: I wonder if he wrote it.
Casey G. Smith.: It's a good question.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Okay. Any more news?
Casey G. Smith.: No, that's it for news for me, sir.
Reginald Titus Jr.: All right. Um, what you been watching?
Casey G. Smith.: Okay, glad you asked, sir. So, on, well, I'll go with this one first. Since we were talking about being in the theater, the movie that I went to see in theaters yesterday was a was a childhood dream come true. So, I went to see the what Hasbro calls the apology tour, 40th anniversary of Transformers: The Movie. Okay. So this is the animated 1986 film that came out when I was in second grade. Yeah, I probably I would have been in second grade then. As a child of the 80s, of course, I grew up watching Transformers. Absolutely. That was that was the jam. And so this film drops, I didn't get a chance to see in theaters. My mom and dad didn't take me for whatever reason. And though I mean they were they were promoting the heck out of the movie on TV. It was like, there was literally a countdown happening. It was like, three more days. Uh, for the new one, or for when you were a child? When I was a child, I remember you watched the TV show and at the end it would they'd promote the movie. It'll be five more days till you can see me, Optimus Prime, on the screen. It's almost like he's talking to you. Real talk. I was like, I want to go. He just told me. But I didn't I didn't go. And and in hindsight, I'm kind of glad I didn't. Because then you cause then, you know, the you hear about what what happened. You hear about, you know, Optimus dying. And then you get into the the next season, season four of Transformers. And all of a sudden, it's all all new all new autobots. Yeah. You're like, oh, where's where's Optimus? Where's Ironhide? Where's Prowl? It's like, the whole some things happened. Yeah, the whole crew is gone. There's maybe a handful of survivors. Everybody's all new. New leader. Who's this Rodimus Prime guy? Yeah. So anyway, I got the VHS like, you know, by the time I was in third grade. I watched it, you know, I shed a tear for Optimus. Yeah. And since then, I've I literally wore that VCR tape out. I watched it so many times. I own it on DVD, Blu-ray, 4K. I still have the original vinyl. Dang. To this thing. So needless to say, I'm like, oh you're serious. You are a fan. Transformers, um, it came it was like a I'm trying to remember the the the play like the lineup. I think it was like Dennis the Menace, Heathcliff, and then Transformers. Um, on I forgot what what days those that it came on. I remember it. You know, I was like, okay. And they were probably doing, when you were watching, it was probably, honestly, probably syndicated reruns by that point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So, but, you know, uh, so I got a chance to finally see it in theaters and I I literally know this film by heart. Dang. Like, I I'm like, every line. It's dialed in. Then there there were there were I was sitting next to There's other adults that have the same situation. Oh, yeah. But there was these there was these two two like younger, like they're like junior high kids. They're probably about 13 or something like that. 12, 13. And they're and they're they're were sitting right right next to me and I got my homeboy on my on my left. And I leaned over and I said, hey guys, I apologize in advance. If I'm quoting like every line from this film. But the the kid on the on the other side of of the kid in between us, he was like, I've seen this movie online a lot. He goes, I know it too. I was like, okay. Well, we'll join in. Yeah, we were both like quoting lines whole time. And he was he was real he was he he had I was like, okay, I see a young young blood. And my my my other buddy, he had never seen it before. He had never seen it before. And so he was he was he was getting a a laugh out of it. Now he had seen a few episodes of of the shows of the kid. He didn't watch it as heavily as I did, but but he got he got a good laugh out of it. There there's some pretty there's a couple funny spots when the when the humor hits, but it was it was a nice experience to have. I was like, check that off the list. Autobots. Yeah, but it's one of those, um, special showings through the Fathom Events kind of thing. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, that was I think they were built on the, um, Fathom Events was like on the like kind of like the WeFunder, everybody kind of like the the people are all part owners of the company. Is that is that what Fathom Events? They they do this for all kinds of stuff. Like, oh, for these are limited runs. Like they did G.I. Joe, the like the original animated movie a couple years ago. They did a screening of that in the theaters. Um, so they they do just different stuff sometimes. And it might it might be whatever. I mean, they they did Hamilton at one point through I think through Fathom Events. But they'll just put stuff on screens and show it in theaters for this like small limited runs. That's pretty cool. Yes, sir. What about you, Reginald? What's what's you got on on your, uh, your watchlist?

Reginald's Watchlist (Documentaries & TV Shows)
Reginald Titus Jr.: What have I been watching? Uh, I haven't it's been a busy, it's been a busy month. But I I have a trailer. This trailer is called Tyson. It's a four-part documentary about Mike Tyson. Uh, it comes out on Netflix on October 13th. Okay. And it's just like breaking down his whole life. We kind of know the Mike Tyson story. It's been told different ways. You know, it's been, uh, several movies and TV shows, uh, where it's, uh, fictionalized or whatever, but, um, this is him talking about his life as, you know, sitting down and talking about everything that he's gone through. So I look forward to watching that. One of the guys was like, Mike Mike's life, it was beautiful. Like a train wreck, beautiful. Man. So like, yeah, so I'm interested in seeing what that. That popped up on my timeline on, uh, YouTube.
Casey G. Smith.: I saw the key art for that, and I didn't click on it 'cause I figured it was just gonna be like one of their short like 86-minute documentaries. Uh, so I was like, okay, but four-part series, I'm definitely interested.
Reginald Titus Jr.: So speaking of Netflix documentaries, I watched one called Mr. T. I pity the fool. I did see that trailer. Okay. And this was one of their one of their shorter like, it runs about maybe an hour and a half. Okay. Uh, maybe an hour and 15. But it it shows you the start of of Mr. T's life where he started his his his real name, where he grew up in the the ghettos of Chicago. And you see, you know, yearbook picture of him with hair and everything and and the reason why he calls himself Mr. T. And he talks about growing up not seeing his like seeing his father like being called boy sometimes. Oh, wow. Yeah. Not like being old school. Give yeah, give him respect. So he said, when he decided to change his name, and he became he became a bouncer. And he changed his name to Mr. T because he says people people would always address him by Mr. Always with respect. Just in case you ain't know. Yeah. And even when he talked about like the chains, I I'd never heard this story before, but he he mentions that how with the chains that he wears, it's it's it's like he's he's kind of taking like the the chains that that we that black people wore when they were brought over here being enslaved. And you know, saying how they their chains were heavy, he's like, you know, these these aren't gonna be heavy for me. You know, I'm I'm I'm carrying this way. But also he he ties it back into, I want to say the Mandingo Warriors or something one of one of the African tribes that he's like ties back. I'm like, oh man, T's going deep. It it was very interesting. I'm not I'm not doing it justice, but, uh, nice short little documentary, just highlighting his life and really kind of where he took off and skyrocketed from Rocky III. I mean, he just it makes sense though like listening to his personality. Like I know the personality from just just the kind of like parody of, you know, Exactly. I pity the fool and this is like I only know him for that stuff. But when you go back and look at what he's talking to Rocky about, you in the in the movie, like, wait a second, there's something there's something else. Yeah, you're improvising this, what's going on? And then, um, and then you mentioning like there's there's a reason for his name being Mr. Or for the chains and and all that like, oh, this guy is, there's something going on here.
Casey G. Smith.: Definitely. Old school. For sure. Yeah, you're improvising this, what's going on? For sure. And even when they when they I'm yeah, check it out though, Mr. T, if you if you are a a fan of Mr. T, if you grew up with him, even if you only know him by say parody and name, it's a nice little documentary worth checking out on Netflix.
Reginald Titus Jr.: Okay. Just in case you ain't know. Yeah. Yeah.