Obsession lands in Broomfield theaters this weekend, and it's exactly what late July asks for

Late July is a strange, sun-baked stretch for moviegoing in Broomfield. The blockbusters have mostly had their moment, school hasn't started clawing back everyone's evenings yet, and there's a two-week window where genre movies quietly slip into theaters hoping people want an air-conditioned scare before August turns into back-to-school errands. Obsession, the new supernatural horror film from writer-director-editor Curry Barker, opens this weekend at theaters around the area, and if you've been waiting for a reason to duck into a dark room for ninety minutes, this is a reasonable one.

What makes Obsession worth talking about isn't a splashy production story or a decade-long path to the screen. It's the opposite: this is a small, contained horror premise executed by one person wearing three hats. Barker wrote it, directed it, and edited it himself, which in an era of committee-built franchise horror is worth noting on its own. Low-budget horror has always been the genre's proving ground, the place where filmmakers get to try a weird idea without a studio sanding off its edges, and Obsession reads like exactly that kind of swing. The cast leans on names that horror and comedy fans will recognize more from internet-adjacent circles and character work than from marquee leads, Cooper Tomlinson and Megan Lawless carrying the central relationship, with Andy Richter showing up in a supporting role that's likely to get a few knowing chuckles from anyone who's followed his career since his Conan days.

The premise itself is a clean, almost fable-like hook. Bear works at a music store, the kind of low-stakes retail job that horror movies love because it's relatable and grounded before things go sideways. He buys a toy, and it's supernatural, and it grants him the one wish every lonely twenty-something has made under their breath at some point: make the person I like love me back. Nikki does. And then she doesn't stop. That's the engine of the movie, and it's a smart one, because it takes a fantasy that sounds sweet on paper (someone loves you completely, unconditionally, all the time) and turns it into a nightmare by simply refusing to let it end. There's a version of this story that plays as a cautionary romance and a version that plays as body-horror-adjacent stalker fiction, and the trailer materials suggest Obsession is aiming for the second, using “obsession” literally rather than metaphorically.

Here's the honest part. I don't have critic scores to point you to for this one, no Rotten Tomatoes percentage, no Metacritic number, nothing aggregated yet from a wide enough pool of reviewers to tell you how the consensus is shaking out. That's not unusual for a horror title opening in this size of release window, and I'd rather tell you that plainly than pretend I have data I don't. So this judgment is mine, built off the premise, the pedigree, and what I know about how these low-budget “be careful what you wish for” horror movies tend to land.

The idea is genuinely good. Cursed-object horror lives or dies on how cleverly the object's rules are used, and turning “she'll love you forever” into a slow-building horror engine is a stronger hook than most wish-fulfillment horror gets. My concern is execution and pacing. Films where one person writes, directs, and edits can either feel tightly controlled and singular, or they can feel like nobody in the room said “this scene runs too long.” Without a second creative check on Barker's instincts, Obsession is a bit of a coin flip on whether the back half sustains the tension the premise sets up in its first act.

Still, I'd rather see a movie swing hard on a strange, specific idea than play it safe with another haunted house. Obsession has a hook worth the price of a ticket, a cast that should bring some sharp comic-horror timing, and a filmmaker clearly not afraid to work without a safety net. It won't be for horror fans who need polish and scale. It's for the ones who want a weird, uncomfortable idea followed all the way through.

Facts verified as of September 23, 2026.