We’ll still have to wait until May 2027 for Curry Barker’s “Anything But Ghosts” to hit theaters, but fans of the “Obsession” writer/director have a new project to help them out.
Barker wrote, directed and edited a new short film called “Mama Bear,” which premiered on his That’s a Bad Idea YouTube channel Thursday morning. The five-minute project, sponsored by Microsoft, stars Jon Lee Richardson as Floyd, a young man whose nap is interrupted by very disturbing phone calls that quickly change the course of his day. Katie Sarife, Ericka Kreuz and Joshua Snyder co-star. Check out the film below.
Barker continues to enjoy one of the most notable years we’ve seen from a filmmaker in recent memory. After “Obsession” was acquired by Focus Features at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, the film grossed more than $500 million at the global box office this spring. Barker quickly became one of Hollywood’s most in-demand filmmakers, lining up a string of projects that included a reboot of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” for A24 and a mysterious original horror film that landed him an eight-figure contract with Universal. And Barker had already completed “Anything But Ghosts,” a supernatural comedy in which he co-stars with longtime filmmaking partner Cooper Tomlinson, even before “Obsession” premiered.
This led to Barker receiving IndieWire’s first Future of Filmmaking Award at our recent summit in Los Angeles. In a conversation with IndieWire’s Chris O’Falt at the event, Barker talked about his roots in making independent short films and how that helped him hone his voice before “Obsession.”
“I definitely learned a lot from the comments section,” Barker said of his experience posting his short films on the That’s a Bad Idea channel. “I think the main thing I would take away is how intelligent the audience is. I think if I hadn’t learned that early on, I would write my dialogue differently. Maybe I would write more expository, maybe I wouldn’t feel as confident that people understood me. It was priceless, to see, ‘Oh my God, this little thing, they understand it! They understand these nuances.'”
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