Curry Barker says his upcoming horror film for Focus Features and Blumhouse Atomic Monster, Anything But Ghosts, pushed him harder than his breakout hit Obsession ever did. "The hardest day on Obsession was the easiest day on Anything But Ghosts," Barker told Deadline at its TIFF DGA panel last weekend.
Barker, who wrote, directs and stars in the new film as its lead character, described a punishing production schedule. "We had a 130-page script and we had 26 days to shoot it. I'm also starring in it and directing and I'm the lead character. I have more lines than anyone in the movie," he said.
He revealed that filmmaker Zach Kregger urged him to trim the script. "Zach Kregger just told me, 'You have to cut 30 pages' and I probably should have listened to him. So, did my manager; he told me that, too." Barker admitted he ignored the advice: "But I didn't cut a single page because I wanted to shoot all of it. It was the hardest thing I've ever done and we were compromising shots left and right off the shot list. Gone. Just like coverage was going out the windows. It was crazy."
Barker made the comments while at TIFF marking the one-year anniversary of Obsession's premiere. The half-billion-grossing film, made for just $750,000, follows a story that has drawn audiences ranging from Gen Z to viewers in their 50s, with couples reportedly leaving screenings divided over whether they side with Bear (Michael Johnston) or Nikki (Inde Navarrette).
Barker explained the film's origin came from an interest in obsession as a source of horror, and from a "wish gone wrong" concept exploring the discomfort of getting exactly what you wished for. He said he directed Navarrette to play her role "like a real person" — a jealous girlfriend rather than a possessed demon — adding that fans often tell him the film reminds them of their own relationships: "Sometimes people are like, 'Dude, this is just like my girlfriend.' I'm like, 'Which part?' They're like, 'The whole movie!'"
Among the boldest moments on set, Barker recalled shooting the scene where Nikki smashes her head through a car window with only one usable prop after the first, made of candy, shattered in the art department's hands. "We literally just had one piece of glass. I was like, 'Alright, Inde, you got to ram your head into this window!'" he said. "That was crazy. If that didn't work out, we would have actually been screwed for the day and we didn't have the budget to come back the next day."
Anything But Ghosts, also written by Barker, follows a group of ghosthunters who are actually hucksters and is set in the same universe as Obsession. Barker costars alongside longtime collaborator and Obsession actor Cooper Tomlinson, with Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard also joining the cast. The film does not yet have a release date.
Photo: Kevin Payravi, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
