Writing a number #1 screenplay isn’t easy. Thankfully, Curry Barker, the writer-director behind the 2026 horror hit film, had his dad to call on as his script consultant. Jeff Barker, who worked for many years as a psychiatric nurse practitioner before also turning to screenwriting full-time, was able to help his son figure out some things for Obsession. In an interview on the Reel Appreciation podcast, the proud dad opened up about what that actually looked like, and how amazed he is by what his son has built.
“He came to me and asked if I could help him figure a couple of things out”
Jeff’s own journey to screenwriting has been long and interesting. “For the last 3 years I’ve been a full-time screenwriter,” he explained. “Before that, I was in psychiatry as a circuit psychiatric nurse practitioner. Before that, I was a photographer. Before that, I was a news anchor for about 9 years.” The thread through it all has been writing. “I’ve been a writer throughout all of it over the last 25 years writing, you know, short stories, novel manuscripts.”
Surprisingly, Jeff never considered screenwriting until Curry called on his help. “When Curry was working on Obsession about 3 years ago, when he first started out, he came to me and asked, you know, if I could help him with a couple of things, help him figure out a couple of things,” Jeff said. “And so I at that time like really dove into screenwriting to, you know, figure out exactly how it works. And I just became obsessed with it.”
That obsession lead to a new career path and also being involved with one of the most successful screenplays in recent years. “I really started learning screenplays by reading them and just reading as many as I could and figuring out, you know, the different mechanics and styles,” he said. “So much so that I, you know, quit my job and started doing this full-time.”
What Jeff Barker actually did on Obsession
Asked directly what his role was, Jeff didn’t inflate it or make it sound like he was the co-writer. “I was a script consultant,” he said, “so helping Curry with developing the script.” But he doesn’t claim the film as his own work.
Instead he was happy to help his son. Beyond the script too. Jeff not only voiced the trivia DJ heard over the loudspeaker in the film’s bar scenes, but he appeared in the music store scene too. “I’m an extra, you know, I’m in the music store like banging on the drums in one shot,” he said. “It’s really funny cuz people are messaging me that they found that. They’re like, ‘Oh cool, I saw you in the movie.’ So yeah, that’s pretty neat.”
It’s a tiny role but it shows just how much Jeff was willing to help out his son get things done for the film.
The psychiatric background behind Obsession’s psychology
Obsession’s take on romantic fixation has been praised for handling heavy psychological material with real care, and Jeff sees his own clinical background as part of why. “This movie has a lot of psychology in it,” he said. “Curry said many times in interviews and stuff that he felt like growing up in a house with psychology has really paid off.”
“With the maturity and the care that he handled some of these themes that are hot-button issues, it takes a lot of insight into the human condition to do that and not fall into some sort of trap,” Jeff also said. “So he certainly did his homework on that, and I’m super proud of him.”
Of course that philosophy extends to how Jeff thinks about his own writing, too. “I write psychological horror because for me it’s the best vehicle to be able to tell those stories,” he said. “You know, the things happen psychologically that manifest on the outside. The true horror is the manifestation that comes out because of the conflict and what people are dealing with — the traumas, the pain, the grief.”
“Nothing compares to the last couple of weeks”
Obsession was made for roughly $750,000 and has since turned into one of the biggest word-of-mouth stories in recent horror history. Jeff has watched that trajectory up close since day one, but the scale of the film’s success still catches him off guard. “The most surreal thing I just can’t wrap my head around is that his movie was number one at the box office for three days in a row,” Jeff said. He remembered how modest their expectations once were: “I remember telling him specifically, you know, if you get lucky enough that this ends up being a movie that’s streamed and you end up on a service that is going to put it up in the seven theaters just to say that they did, I’ll go wherever it is to go see it.”
Instead, “you could just go to any small town in the US, and there’s five or six showings a day. It’s just mind-blowing.”
For Jeff, though, the box office numbers aren’t even the most meaningful part. “The real thing that has really blown my mind is I’m not surprised, but I’m just so super proud of how Curry hasn’t changed through this process,” he said. “He’s a very generous and kind person. He wants everybody around him to rise up with him, and he’s open to ideas, open to collaboration. That hasn’t changed.”
A family effort, and a message for Hollywood
Jeff was quick to note that Curry’s success is a family project. “His brothers are also involved in the business and have been involved with his films,” he said, “so it’s just a huge moment for everybody.”
It also fits a broader point Curry himself has made publicly about how Obsession got made: that tight constraints, not unlimited budgets, are what forced the film’s focus. Jeff, as the writer who helped shape it, sees that as a feature rather than a limitation. “If you start off with a premise of, I’m going to write my scenes and my characters in such a way that I’m using very little resources, there’s always room to add in and grow,” he said. “It’s more difficult to shave away.” Obsession‘s entire cast, he pointed out, comes down to roughly four characters and three locations — Ian’s house, Bear’s house, and a restaurant/pub. “That’s what you can do, or what you have to do, when you only have 20 days to shoot and a $750,000 budget.”
What’s next for Jeff Barker And Obsession
Jeff also mentioned his excitement about Curry’s follow-up film, Anything But Ghosts, shot in Vancouver on a noticeably bigger scale. “It felt more like a studio movie with a huge crew,” he said, describing watching his son “step up and be the captain of the ship where he had to answer a thousand questions a day” while also acting in front of the camera. “He did it every time with humility and interest, never being frustrated… I can’t wait for the world to see Anything But Ghosts.”
There may be more in the Obsession world itself, too, as co-star Megan Lawless recently teased the idea of an anthology built around the film’s central premise, something Jeff, as the family’s resident script consultant, would presumably have a hand in if it moves forward.
For now, though, Jeff Barker is simply taking in what his son has built with Obsession. “I hope that when it’s all said and done, I will be able to tell stories about the human condition that have people talking and realizing things about themselves that they didn’t realize otherwise.”
