Every year there’s a horror movie that outperforms its budget by a stupid amount. In 2026, that movie is Obsession written, directed, and edited by Curry Barker, shot by cinematographer Taylor Clemons, made for $750,000, and sitting well north of half a billion dollars worldwide.
Obsession opened to $17.2 million from 2,615 theaters already well ahead of the roughly $10 million analysts had projected. Then it did something almost no wide-release horror film has ever done: it grew in its second weekend, pulling $22.4 million, up 30% over its opening. Over Memorial Day weekend it posted a three-day gross of $23.9 million, a 39.4% jump over its already-strong opening frame. Producer Jason Blum noted it as the only wide-release horror title on record to scale up like that in week two. From there it kept climbing, eventually crossing $514 million worldwide off a $750,000 budget, a multiplier that basically doesn’t happen at this scale.
Curry Barker wrote, directed, and edited the film himself. Cinematographer Taylor Clemons, whose path into film started by shooting skate and surf videos, shot it a background that shows up in the movie’s handheld, close-quarters camera language more than a traditional horror-DP resume would. The film was shot in Los Angeles in October 2024, well before anyone involved could have predicted what it would become in theaters.
The premise was partly inspired, by Barker’s own account, by “Treehouse of Horror II,” the Simpsons Halloween episode built around a monkey’s paw that grants warped wishes. It’s a strange, almost throwaway origin point for a film that ended up outgrossing most studio tentpoles released the same year.
Clemons has talked about the shoot in terms of shadow and restraint rather than spectacle leaning on darkness and what’s withheld from frame rather than what’s shown, the kind of choice a low budget forces on you and that, done well, ends up being scarier than a bigger budget’s worth of visible monster ever would. It’s the same lesson that shows up in most breakout micro-budget horror: constraint isn’t a problem to work around, it’s often the actual reason the film is good.
Variety. “How ‘Obsession’ Became an Unprecedented Box Office Horror Hit — and One of the Year’s Most Profitable Movies.” https://variety.com/2026/film/box-office/obsession-box-office-breakout-hit-horror-1236757946/. 2026.
The Hollywood Reporter. “Box Office Stunner: Obsession Makes History With Second-Weekend Spike.” https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/box-office-obsession-second-weekend-spike-1236606229/. 2026.
The ASC. “Gradients of Darkness: Shooting ‘Obsession’.” https://theasc.com/article/obsession-cinematography-clemons/. 2026.NBC News. “How an Indie Horror Film Became a Box-Office ‘Obsession’.” https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/pop-culture-news/obsession-curry-barker-box-office-hit-focus-features-rcna346824. 2026.