Obsession

Obsession

Writer & Director ~ Curry Barker

2025, USA

Stars ~ Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson

 

A word-of-mouth success from YouTube comedian Curry Barker: he has struck a nerve here. As if crawling out of the same genus as ‘The Drama’ except in horror garb, ‘Obsession’ confronts the difficulties of relationships, in this case the terror of crushes for both sides. If ‘The Drama’ came on like an imposter dragged in romcom to talk about trust and dark thoughts, ‘Obsession’ lands equally thoughtful and resonant on unrequited love and the malignancy of romantic fantasies. ‘Together’, ‘The Invite’ and ‘The Drama’ reach a kind of truce, but ‘Obsession’ uses its supernatural ingredient to let the whole world surrounding Bear (Michael Johnston) suffer for his harmful crush. If he initially seems a little immature and lovestruck, as things get grimmer and he can’t give her up despite things getting murkier and crazier, it clear that he’s more like Josh from ‘Companion’ that he would admit to himself.   

With one supernatural twist, Bear gets what he wants: a Manic Pixie Dreamgirl of his own. Only, straight away her transformation is a little off-putting to him. There are several discussions on social media of the moment where this is defined as rape, but it is a psychological and sexual assault from the moment Bear doesn’t really worry about Nikki’s agency or consent. Even when he knows the One Wish Willow is working – which is straight away, however much he could be forgiven for not expecting it – he asks for amendments rather than reversal. He can’t give up his power. There is the feeling that the film is also talking to its own peer group, rebuking those oblivious to their own toxicity.

I saw an online reading of the One Wish Willow company voice that Bear speaks to as possessed of a kind of omnipotent knowledge of Death and the supernatural context. My hearing of it was of a somewhat disgruntled customer service worker, bored of the special pleading that he hears repeatedly from people that won’t accept the consequences of their wishes coming true. Certainly, in a meta reading, it could be the voice of the film/director/writer admonishing those who harbour such one-sided fantasies. Not only is it a pell-mell descent into What If? your partner becomes a horror that you can’t quite figure out, stop or drop, but it is also about the responsibility of your fantasies. He’s clearly told to take responsibility.

Inde Navarrette as Nikki is a stunner, proving again that horror is a treasure-trove of bold and nuanced female performances: she is funny and scary, delirious and heartbreaking. She’s the showstopper, but Michael Johnson as Bear also gives a smart, knowing performance with a full understanding of Bear’s immaturity, manipulations, confusion and toxicity, and never quite giving into one-note villainy over complexity. 

The taped-up door and the party are highlights. It looks like a horror take on romantic tropes but also subverts by not quite being what you expect, by being a headscratcher and leaving plenty of room for discussion about unrequited love, responsibility, agency, gender, etc. It swerves from romcom to cringe comedy to shock-horror (it was the first genuine jump-scare I have had for a long time). But the various tones are clearly directed by a central anger and an aching sadness (at the immaturity of male fantasy?) that makes this a criticism of the genre, endowing the film with maturity, complexity and fun that makes it a horror essential with much crossover potential. 

"Bandwagon Broadcast" - A Buck Theorem album

 Bandwagon Broadcast 

a Buck Theorem album

 

A Second album from me for this year. This one is more extrovert and upbeat, a more indie-electronica inclination. I've already performed a few of these live, but it takes me time to build up all the tracks to fit an album.

 You're often asked to cite influences at live events, and I am thinking this kind of thing is inspired by Art of Noise, Zang Tumb Tumb, Depeche Mode, but also Belle and Sebastian and the likes of Death in Vegas, and these are just the bigger names. It's all a mush of music in the head.

So: 

It was a time to skip work and join the Popular Gang. Suicide by proxy, murder for Salvation (18th Century Armenian style). Men with money speak with ego while everyday people just want nice houses, to dance and to hum. Vinyl has always been the soundtrack of romance.

ALL SONGS BY BUCK THEOREM EXCEPT “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE” BY JOHN BARRY & LESLIE BRICUSSE
USING GARAGEBAND, SOMA PIPE AND SAMPLES FROM DAVID LYNCH, “THE TYRANT KING”, “TOKYO BULLET”, “PENDA’S FEN”, "THE IPCRESS FILE" & “THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH”.

 

Backrooms

BACKROOMS
Director ~ Kane Parsons
Writers ~ Will Soodik, Kane Parsons
2026 ~ USA-Canada
Stars ~ Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass

I would say my fear of being trapped in another threatening dimension or time was unlocked first by ‘The Amazing Mister Blunden’ when I was a kid. And then there was Sapphire being trapped in a painting in ‘Sapphire and Steel’, or even the blue door in ‘From, beyond the Grave’ was scary. Strangely, I don’t remember ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ bothering me. The idea that you won’t get back was frightening.  Recently, there are entries like ‘Vivarium’, ‘Exit 8’ or ‘The Rose to Nevada’ and now ‘Backrooms’, all which tap into adult neurosis in alternate time-traps and dimensions. This is the kind of thing that Sapphire and Steel were dispatched to sort out.

Kane Parsons' original YouTube series ‘Backrooms’ is told through found footage, corporate videos, stills, muzak and drone, alternating between seemingly prosaic vignettes that contain clues and p.o.v. search-and-scares. It also suffers from that found footage annoyance of lack of framing or/and going to black or simply being undecipherable at key moments. By the end of the fourth episode, it is made clear that found footage isn’t the only medium the series will use. It taps into a truly nightmarish vision of endless bruise-yellow corridors that never end, that contains sudden half-seen threats that stomp and yowl after you. The sound-design is also key: crackling protective suit dialogue, drone, silence, static. Frequent bad camerawork and sound are features of the medium, often used to leapfrog budgetary restraints as much as putting you in the thick of fear, but here it is also the texture. However, there is no doubt that there is a full story coherent in the background, and the exposition, when it comes, is relayed by excellent voice actor work that makes even an extended episode about the light fixtures being normal fascinating and uncanny. Short bursts of clues and mystery that you can jigsaw together, ‘Backrooms’ is made by and for the YouTube generation, spawned from 4Chan, Creepypasta and social media threads and fan speculations. Creative types no longer need wait for the frustrating and negligible whims of studios.

Parsons comes across as an extremely articulate and non-posturing twenty-year-old who is totally attuned to and articulate on contemporary mediums and tools like YouTube and Blender. His fascination with liminal spaces is at the core of the ‘Backrooms’ concept, and essentially being trapped in them, or the half-remembered remnants of them, with added occasional malevolent entities. So, you get the science-fiction mystery and the “monster-in-a-maze” element, always half-seen. Yet in the original series there was also a victim that just wastes away to death because he can’t get out, which is surely just as frightening. What is obvious is that Parsons is totally in control of this story and that everyone else has caught up and now we have this film: a film totally in tune with the ambience of contemporary horror with A24 arthouse sensibilities, but also just with the anxieties of open world games (he namechecks ‘Half-Life’ and sandbox creation games like ‘Minecraft’).

But the film also stands on its own, even if the wider context of the series heightens it. It feels relevant because Parsons is tapping into the very zeitgeist of the modern gaming age and because he most evidently isn’t just winging it. Like the series, the film starts like a like an instalment of the series of the ‘V/H/S’ franchise, even down to the P.O.V. going crazy and not seeing what exactly is going on when things hit pitch. However, that is not all of Parsons’ tricks, for the depth and assuredness he presents and develops character here is not something the format of the original series promised. The successful short bursts that the YouTube series offers paves way for the excellent performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor as Clark. Clark is already in a liminal state – estranged from him wife, living in the furniture store that he owns – when we meet him: what is satisfying is that everything has a logical progression in that his already established temper leads him to an outburst that leads him to discovering the backrooms. Ejiofor gives a very real and brilliant portrayal of a character type that is all too recognisable: stuck in resentment for himself and others, seemingly always at battle with both, and therefore suspectable to the paradox of the Backrooms.

When things turn a little ‘Maniac’, it feels a let-down of the nuanced work Ejiofor has done: such obvious horror tropes seem unnecessary. In introducing the backrooms idea, Parson says:

“So it’s kind of like a very benign version of … purgatory or hell myth, but without any kind of damnation aspect. It’s inherently a force of nature that you can’t negotiate with, and it doesn’t pull you in because you’ve done something wrong. It does it because reality broke.”

The enigma around the backrooms ultimately remains, and indeed does not need explanation, but that it is partially a huge unregulated therapy session for Clark tells again of filmmakers being too self-aware and not letting the subconscious do the work (one can imagine the deliberate lacunae David Lynch would have left). There is platitudinous therapy speak wrapped around the whole affair, almost sinisterly. Yet that the Backrooms feed from the trauma of those that enter its endless hallways has been evident in its building mythos, but not quite so overtly stated. The looming entity derived from Clark, staggering around in disturbing in its uncanny cartoonishness is enough.

Or as Brian Tallerico writes, “While “Backrooms” finds some twisted imagery along the way, it does have a bad habit of trying to explain itself more than it should.” The performances are high calibre, the conceit is unforgettable, the plotting solidly considered, the mystery tantalising, the true scope available with further watching of the series. There is an “almost-great” feel to the end product, but the promise of ‘Backrooms’ and Kane Parsons are considerable, should you go down the rabbit hole. Certainly, if it works for you, you’ll be wanting more.