How a $750,000 Horror Film Went On to Earn Half a Billion Dollars

A music shop assistant snaps a toy that cost a couple of dollars and wishes that his co-worker would love him more than anyone in the world. The wish comes true to the letter, and that is where the most profitable horror film of the decade begins. Obsession cost no more than $750,000, and by 21 September 2026 it had taken $519 million worldwide.

Curry Barker made it at 25. Before that he made comedy sketches on YouTube, and his previous feature, Milk & Serial, was released there in August 2024 on a budget of $800.

What the film is about

Bear has long been in love with Nikki, who works in the same shop, and cannot bring himself to tell her. In a crystal shop he buys a novelty called the One Wish Willow: break the stick and one wish is granted. Bear asks for Nikki to love him more than anyone.

By morning she does. Only this is not the Nikki he knew: she will not leave his side, does not sleep, is jealous of his friends and grows more frightening by the day. The wish cannot be undone, and the real Nikki seems to understand everything and can do nothing about it.

Barker himself says the film is not about magic. For him the wish is only a device that shows how a fixation on another person destroys both of them.

Who is in it

• Michael Johnston as Bear
• Inde Navarrette as Nikki
• Cooper Tomlinson as Ian, Bear’s friend and co-worker
• Megan Lawless as Sarah
• Andy Richter as Carter, the shop owner

The voice of the One Wish Willow helpline operator is the director’s own, recorded on his phone while he was editing in his bedroom.

Navarrette was previously known for the series 13 Reasons Why and Superman & Lois. She performed Nikki’s screams, facial expressions and changes of voice herself, with no computer effects. Guy Lodge of Variety wrote that she was “acing one of the more physically and emotionally taxing horror leads to come down the pike in a while”. Katie Rife of RogerEbert.com noted that her scenes keep reminding the audience of “the human being trapped inside”.

How it was conceived and shot

The idea of the wish came to the director in July 2023 while he was watching an episode of The Simpsons with a monkey’s paw. He spent eight months on the script while working in a coffee shop.

According to the director, he was offered two million dollars to rewrite the script and turn Bear into a hero. He said no.

Filming began in late October 2024 in and around Los Angeles: 20 shooting days plus six more for reshoots, at five to six script pages a day. To avoid wasting time on unnecessary takes, the director and cinematographer Taylor Clemons scanned the locations in 3D beforehand and planned the shots on digital models. The characters were deliberately placed in the centre of the frame with too much empty space above their heads, so that the picture would feel uncomfortable.

The director edited the film himself. The music is by Rock Burwell, for whom this is a first feature; he named Angelo Badalamenti’s Twin Peaks soundtrack as his reference point.

A record deal and the box office

The premiere took place on 5 September 2025 at the Toronto International Film Festival, in the Midnight Madness programme. A24, Neon and Netflix all bid for the rights, which went to Focus Features for $14–15 million. That is the highest price ever paid for a genre film at the festival. After the premiere Jason Blum joined the project as executive producer.

The film opened in American cinemas on 15 May 2026 in third place, with $17.2 million over the weekend. Then something happened that almost never does. In the second weekend takings rose by 39 per cent, and in the third they rose again. The only wide release before it to grow three weekends in a row outside the Christmas season was E.T.

Three quarters of the audience were aged 18 to 34. By the end of August Obsession had passed $500 million, becoming the highest-grossing film in the history of Focus Features and the fifth highest-grossing horror film of all time, not adjusted for inflation.

What the critics say

On Rotten Tomatoes 93 per cent of 329 reviews are positive, and on Metacritic the film scores 77 out of 100. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an A−, a rare grade for a horror film.

Lou Thomas of Empire called it “so fresh and exhilarating, one can forgive its familiar origins”. Benjamin Lee of The Guardian singled out the “disturbing sound design”.

Not everyone agrees. Odie Henderson of The Boston Globe wrote that the film “tries to say something about female autonomy and male selfishness” but ends up as a riff on the old stand-up routine “girlfriends be crazy”. Several critics faulted the film for barely letting us see events through Nikki’s own eyes.

Obsession won three prizes at Sitges and the Critics’ Choice Super Award for best horror movie, where Navarrette was also named best actress in a horror movie.

What comes next

The director is considering a sequel and an anthology series in which a new character makes a wish in each episode. His next film is called Anything but Ghosts.

Cast, stills and ratings are on the Obsession page in AMDB.