Curry Barker has a problem: his new horror movie, Anything But Ghosts, has a 130-page script and just 26 days to shoot it. And he has no intention of cutting a single page.
That’s the crux of Barker’s story, shared at Deadline’s TIFF DGA panel earlier last weekend. The writer-director, who made the low-budget Obsession — a movie that grossed over half a billion dollars — said he is starring in the film, directing it, and playing the lead character. He also has more lines than anyone else in the movie.
“I have more lines than anyone in the movie,” Barker said. “We had a 130-page script and we had 26 days to shoot it.”
Kregger’s Warning and Barker’s Refusal
Barker’s friend Zach Kregger had one piece of advice that went unheeded. He told Barker to cut 30 pages.
“Zach Kregger just told me, ‘You have to cut 30 pages’ and I probably should have listened to him,” Barker admitted. “So, did my manager; he told me that, too.”
Barker did not listen. He shot every page of the script.
“But I didn’t cut a single page because I wanted to shoot all of it,” Barker said. “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.”
The first prop window shattered in the art department’s hands because “it’s made of candy,” Barker said.
The Obsession Origin Story
Obsession came from a simple idea: a fixation turned dangerous. Barker had long been thinking about a woman obsessed with a man or a man obsessed with a woman, but he could not figure out how to make it work as a horror movie.
Then he cracked the wish element.
“I had already had this idea for a while of maybe a woman obsessed with a man or a man obsessed with a woman,” Barker said. “And I actually hadn’t cracked exactly how I wanted to, like, figure that out. And then once I figured out the wish element of it, I was like, oh my God, my obsession idea. I could make it like a wish gone wrong thing.”
The wish-gone-wrong concept took the idea somewhere uncomfortable. Barker watched other wish-gone-wrong movies and noticed nobody talked about how uncomfortable it was.
“I discovered that when I watched some of these wish gone wrong movies nobody really talked about how uncomfortable it is,” he said. “Some of these wishes — what would it actually be like if you wished for someone to love you back, would it be them actually loving you? Or would it be an entity that loves you and what does that actually look like? And how does a person respond to that?”
The Shock of the Obsession Success
Even Barker was surprised by how well Obsession worked. He knew the parts would be relatable, because he always told Inde Navarrette to play the jealous girlfriend as a real person, not as a possessed demon.
“I knew that there was going to be parts that were relatable, because I always told Inde to play it like a real person and not to play into this possessed demon, but to just play it as a jealous girlfriend,” he said.
The response from audiences has been immediate and direct. People leave the cinema and either take Bear’s side or Nikki’s. Couples leave and say the movie mirrors their own relationship.
“Sometimes people are like, ‘Dude, this is just like my girlfriend.’ I’m like, ‘Which part?’ They’re like, ‘The whole movie!'” Barker said.
The One Take That Worked
One of the boldest directs Barker pulled off on Obsession was the scene where Nikki bashes her head through the car window. Barker only had one take for it.
The first prop window shattered in the art department’s hands because “it’s made of candy,” Barker said.
“We literally just had one piece of glass. I was like, ‘Alright, Inde, you got to ram your head into this window!'” Barker 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.”
Ghosts and the Obsession Universe
Anything But Ghosts was also written by Barker. He costars with Cooper Tomlinson, his longtime collaborator and the star of Obsession. The movie follows ghosthunters who are hucksters, and Barker has said it takes place in the same universe as Obsession.
Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard co-star.
The Shooting Schedule
Barker’s schedule for Anything But Ghosts is compressed, to say the least.
| Element | Detail |
|---|---|
| Script length | 130 pages |
| Shooting days | 26 |
| Co-stars | Cooper Tomlinson, Aaron Paul, Bryce Dallas Howard |
| Budget | Not stated |
| Director | Curry Barker |
| Writer | Curry Barker |
| Production | Focus Features, Blumhouse Atomic Monster |
A Wish Gone Wrong
The wish-gone-wrong theme is the engine of Anything But Ghosts. It is the same idea that powered Obsession, but applied to a different situation.
Barker is shooting the entire script, though he admits the schedule is brutal.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “We were compromising shots left and right off the shot list. Gone. Just like coverage was going out the windows. It was crazy.”
Why Barker Shot It All
Barker’s decision to shoot every page of the script, despite the tight schedule, is a choice that speaks to his commitment to the material. He wanted to capture everything he had written, even if it meant cutting corners on coverage and compromising shots.
It is also a little absurd. A 130-page script in 26 days is an ambitious schedule even for a director with a half-billion-dollar movie on his resume.
The shooting has been hard. The response has been immediate. And the movie, at least in Barker’s hands, is being made exactly as he envisioned it.
Barker’s Own Words on the Two Films
Barker’s comparison of the two projects captures the difference between them. On Obsession, he said, “We had a 130-page script and we had 26 days to shoot it.” On Anything But Ghosts, he said, “We had a 130-page script and we had 26 days to shoot it.”
He framed the contrast himself at the TIFF DGA panel.
“The hardest day on Obsession was the easiest day on Anything But Ghosts,” he said.
That is a telling admission. Barker’s next project is a different beast, and he is bringing the same intensity to it.
Whether the movie works is another question. Barker has the confidence of a director whose last film grossed over half a billion dollars. That is a starting point, not a guarantee.
Source material: “Curry Barker And The Advice He Received From Zach Cregger On ‘Anything But Ghosts’,” Deadline.
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