No one saw the blockbuster horror film of the summer coming from 26-year-old director Curry Barker. Before becoming the filmmaker behind a movie that’s on pace to gross more than $300 million worldwide, Barker was best known for making comedy sketches and independent horror projects on YouTube alongside longtime collaborator Cooper Tomlinson. Now, thanks to Obsession, his name sits at the center of one of the year’s most unlikely success stories. The same instincts he sharpened making scrappy YouTube shorts have coalesced into a fully realized vision now playing on hundreds of screens, and leaving audiences rattled on the way out.

To be fair, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that one of the year’s biggest films is a horror movie. Over the last five years, the genre has gradually become one of Hollywood’s safest bets. Films like Talk to Me, Smile, Longlegs, and The Substance have made a compelling case that horror doesn’t need a familiar antagonist, pre-existing IP, or a recognizable star to break through. Bigger-budget, star-powered horror like Sinners and Weapons has also made the case from the opposite direction, proving the genre and its talent belong on cinema’s biggest stages.

The genre’s success has also opened the door for a new generation. Just weeks after Obsession hit theaters, 20-year-old Kane Parsons turned his viral YouTube series The Backrooms into another smash — now A24‘s highest-grossing film ever at over $250 million. Horror, once defined by familiar franchises, is increasingly shaped by filmmakers audiences are only beginning to discover.

Barker is one of them. Unless you’ve spent the last few years deep in YouTube, there’s a good chance you’d never heard of him. On his channel, that’s a bad idea, he built a loyal following with absurd comedy sketches and increasingly ambitious horror, eventually landing on Milk & Serial, a 2024 cult favorite that marked him as someone to watch long before Hollywood caught on.

Then came Obsession. Made for just $750,000, it has grossed more than $290 million worldwide — and most audiences had no idea who was behind it. Neither Barker nor much of his cast was a known name.

But to call Obsession the latest Gen-Z horror hit sells it short. What sets the movie apart isn’t its premise — a wish gone wrong that turns sinister — but Barker’s approach to fear. Rather than leaning on loud stingers and cheap jump scares, Obsession thrives on discomfort, most of it radiating from Nikki Freeman, the girl at the film’s center. Its most effective moments are its most muted: a lingering stare, a pause held a beat too long, movements that feel just slightly off.

Barker’s scares work on the nerves, not the reflexes. He’d rather make you squirm at what you’re seeing than flinch at a sudden noise. “The modern jump scare,” he tells me, “is less about a physical reaction and more about an emotional reaction.” The most effective scares, he argues, begin long before the audience realizes they’re being scared. By the time something unsettling happens, you’re already too far in to look away — hooked on where this is going, even as it stops making sense.

During a visit to the Hypebeast office, Barker revisited and broke down some of modern horror’s most unsettling moments, many of which still shape how he thinks about fear. As we reviewed memorable scenes from Hereditary, Talk to Me, The Invisible Man and, somewhat unexpectedly, Joker, we didn’t discuss jump scares so much as tension, audience psychology, and why the moments that stay with us longest are often the ones that leave us sitting in silence afterward.

Hypebeast: In a recent interview, you mentioned that the modern jump scare is less about making audiences physically jump and more about making them feel uncomfortable. Can you expand on that idea?

Curry Barker: Obviously there are jump scares in Obsession, but they’re not just loud sounds or music stings. Usually if there’s a loud sound, it’s because something happening in the movie would actually be loud. A door slam is loud in real life, so it’s loud in the theater.

For me, the scariest thing is finding moments that make the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Moments that make you feel disturbed by what you just saw. It’s less about some physical reaction and more about an emotional reaction.

Looking at Obsession, Nikki’s movement, the lighting, and even the inflections in her voice all contribute to that feeling. Were there other details you emphasized to build that tension?

Barker: Her unpredictability was a huge part of it. There’s that moment at the party where she walks behind Sarah and just stands there. You’re immediately thinking, “Oh God, what is she going to do next?”

There’s this constant uncertainty around her. Not knowing what she’s going to do next adds a lot of tension.

This scene has become one of the film’s defining moments. What made it work?

Barker: There’s really no jump scare here. You could argue that when she suddenly yells, “Why don’t you love me?” that’s a jump scare, but the scene isn’t built around that.

Actually, I like keeping scenes quiet. A filmmaker once told me that the louder something is, the more relaxed an audience can become because there’s nowhere left for the tension to build. When things stay quiet, you’re constantly waiting for something to happen.

This scene was about movement. The speeding up, slowing down, hiding her face. I wanted everything to stay from Bear’s perspective. You’re seeing somebody standing in the corner of your room. What would that actually feel like?

You mentioned the scene evolved significantly during production.

Barker: We actually shot additional photography for it. Originally there was a version involving the love crystal from the crystal shop and some other business that lived in the scene for months. But something was missing.

Then we added the flowers and the moment where she starts whining, “I don’t like my dreams.” I’ve gone on record saying that’s the one moment in the movie where I knew it was going to work. Everything else felt uncertain while we were making it. But seeing that on set? It was the creepiest thing I’d ever seen.

Ari Aster’s ability to stretch tension here is unbelievable.

Barker: This is the exact feeling I chase. You’re sitting there thinking, “Did that really just happen?” But you’re also forced to ask yourself what you would do in that situation.

The fact that he simply drives home and lays in bed is almost more disturbing than the accident itself. You’re questioning his behavior, but you’re also questioning your own. Would I do that? Would I be in shock?

I love moments that force that kind of self-reflection. And again, there’s no manufactured jump scare. He could’ve made it louder or more dramatic, but he doesn’t.

It reminds me of how the characters in Obsession react to increasingly bizarre situations while still feeling believable.

Barker: That’s something I care about a lot. I get frustrated watching movies when characters make decisions that don’t feel believable. I’m always asking myself, “What’s the most plausible thing this person would do?”

That’s why when Bear wakes up and notices his hair has been cut, he actually talks to Nikki about it. So many horror movies skip over those moments and pretend nothing happened. I wanted the characters to acknowledge what just happened because that’s how people actually behave.

Barker: This scene is just disturbing. The creature design is incredible, but what really works is that it isn’t doing the obvious thing. We’ve all seen monsters jump at people from dark corners before.

The Philippou brothers are asking, “What else can we do?” Instead, this thing crawls onto the bed and starts sucking on somebody’s feet. That’s insane. And it’s memorable because it’s unexpected.

That idea feels connected to Nikki’s appearance in Obsession. You never push her all the way into traditional demon territory.

Barker: Exactly. I never wanted her to become some fully demonic creature with black eyes and a monstrous face. That’s the version we’ve already seen.

Instead, I kept asking, “What if she’s just a person?” We’ve already accepted that the wish works. We’ve accepted the magic. But beyond that, she’s still just a girl. Keeping it grounded makes it scarier.

You were pretty adamant this had to make the list, even if it technically isn’t horror.

Barker: Because nobody saw that coming. Even though the tension is building, you don’t think it’s building toward that. You think maybe he’s going to storm off stage or get dragged away.

Instead, he pulls out a gun and shoots Murray. I remember watching it in theaters with Cooper and just being completely stunned.

Honestly, moments like this inspired Obsession. I wanted to create a moment where audiences collectively go, “Holy shit.”

Is Sarah’s death scene the closest equivalent in Obsession?

Barker: Probably. That’s definitely the biggest “holy shit” moment in the movie.

I can only aspire to create scenes as effective as the ones we’re talking about today, but that feeling is absolutely something I was chasing.

Listening to you talk about it now, it reminds me a lot of Nikki’s poetry scene at the party. Everybody knows something bad is about to happen, but nobody knows exactly what.

Barker: Totally. It’s funny because I’m so close to the movie now that I sometimes forget what it felt like to watch those scenes for the first time. I’ve known about that monologue for years.

But you’re right. The audience doesn’t know what’s coming. They don’t know she’s about to launch into this strange speech. That’s where the tension comes from.

Barker: What I love here is that Leigh Whannell [director of The Invisible Man] goes quieter instead of louder. The music fades. Everyone in the restaurant starts backing away. She drops the knife. There’s a dead body sitting at the table.

As the audience, you know exactly what happened, but everyone around her thinks she just killed her own sister. You’re left wondering, “What happens now?” Is she going to prison? How does the movie even continue?

What I really respect is that the film doesn’t ignore the consequences. It follows through on them. As a writer, that’s hard. Sometimes you come up with a huge moment and realize it sends the story in such a wild direction that you end up cutting it. This movie commits to it.

It feels like another example of earning the audience’s investment before delivering the payoff.

Barker: One hundred percent. If you don’t care about the characters, none of these scenes work. Every scene we’ve watched today depends on emotional investment.

You have to do the work first. You have to make the audience care. That’s how you earn a moment like this.

Give me one do and one don’t for creating the perfect jump scare.

Barker: Do build tension properly. Use silence. Let the audience sit with the discomfort.

And don’t rely on things that have nothing to do with the story. If a bird suddenly flies into a window, is it there because it matters to the plot? Or is it just there to make people jump? Same thing with a closet opening and a basketball falling out or some random loud noise. I think audiences are kind of past that. The best scares aren’t random. They feel earned.

Whether you’re a lifelong horror fan or simply curious what everyone’s talking about, “Obsession” is now playing in theaters. Follow Curry Barker on Instagram to keep up with horror’s newest breakout filmmaker.