It’s no secret that Curry Barker‘s Obsession is absolutely dominating the box office right now. The small indie horror film has already earned over $90 million on an extremely tiny budget of just $750K. These are the kind of numbers that you simply don’t see indie horror films reach these days.
Of course, the film’s success is surely being celebrated by the talented cast and crew right now, but I wanted to know just how surreal this all must feel for Curry Barker’s dad, Jeff. I imagined seeing your son’s hard work pay off must be one of the most magical experiences a father could have, and speaking with Jeff confirmed that.
Caillou: “When I saw the movie… all three times in the theatre… it’s been such an interesting experience. The first time I saw it I was obviously completely surprised by everything that happened. But the second two times that I’ve seen it, I kind of liked seeing the people around me’s reactions to certain scenes. You know, obviously standout ones like the car scene or the very end. Did you like seeing others reactions too? Have you seen it in the theatre yet?”
Jeff: “I’ve seen it about forty times, yeah. Different cuts of it going way, way back. I saw the first cut which was like two and a half hours long, but this version of it, the final version of it, I’ve seen four times now. I saw it at TIFF for the first time. He [Curry] wanted to show it to me before TIFF, but I wanted to wait and experience it in a crowd because I knew that it was gonna be great because he was just making minor little tweaks to it. That was a surreal experience in TIFF. And then I saw it at the LA premiere a couple of weeks ago. Then, I’ve seen it twice at my local theatre here. And that’s a whole other experience just being in my movie theatre where I sit and watch movies every week. Curry’s movie is on the big screen… it’s like… it’s just as moving as being in TIFF with 1,500 people.”
Caillou: “Yeah, there’s something special about being in your local theatre you’ve been to for so many years.”
Jeff: “I remember a conversation I had with Curry when this was first becoming a reality that this was actually gonna be a movie and he had the greenlight. I remember saying, you know, ‘maybe this will end up on streaming somewhere and it’s gonna exist in the world and be awesome’, or like, you know, a streaming service wants to put it in the theatre in seven cities for two showings like how they do sometimes. I told him, ‘I’ll fly anywhere. I’ll go to Chicago, Miami, wherever it is just so I can sit in a theatre and watch it’. And now to know that it’s in every theatre in every town in the world almost… it’s unbelievable.”
You can check out my full interview with Jeff here:
https://youtu.be/-zDfwVEeHjU?si=pyK1Y3RAnCDYZC0k
Obsession is now playing in theatres.
