{"id":488366,"date":"2026-05-16T22:40:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T22:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/488366\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T22:40:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T22:40:10","slug":"obsession-director-on-alternate-ending-texas-chainsaw-massacre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/488366\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Obsession’ Director on Alternate Ending, Texas Chainsaw Massacre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSPOILER ALERT:<\/strong> This article contains spoilers for \u201cObsession<\/a>,\u201d now playing in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tTwenty-six year-old director Curry Barker started his filmmaking career by posting short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube and other social media platforms. That led him to shooting an hour-long, twisty horror movie called \u201cMilk & Serial\u201d that put him on the map after he released it for free on YouTube. Now, Barker is bringing his first-ever full-length film to theaters this weekend with \u201cObsession\u201d from Focus Features. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cObsession,\u201d which received rave reviews out of the Toronto Film Festival last year, follows a simple premise: a guy wishes for his childhood crush to fall in love with him. However, things quickly take a supernaturally dark turn. Michael Johnston and Inde Navarrette star as the main couple, Bear and Nikki, who fall victim to the One Wish Willow, a wish-granting toy with terrifying results. After Bear makes his wish, Nikki becomes unhealthily obsessed with him. She watches him while he sleeps, barricades her door so he can\u2019t leave and threatens to kill herself so he\u2019ll stay with her. In a shockingly gory scene, she kills Bear\u2019s female co-worker by slamming her head into a steering wheel after Nikki grows jealous.<\/p>\n

\n\tTerrified of Nikki, Bear learns that there\u2019s no way to undo his wish unless he dies. In the end, he overdoses in Nikki\u2019s arms as she snaps out of her wish and realizes the horror around her. If that sounds dark, Barker originally had an even more morbid ending where Nikki kills herself in the final moments of the movie. With Variety, Barker discusses making his theatrical debut, the alternate ending and his next two movies \u201cAnything but Ghosts,\u201d with Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard, and A24\u2019s \u201cTexas Chainsaw Massacre<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u00a9Focus Features\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/p>\n

\n\tWhere did you first get the idea for \u201cObsession\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was toying around with this idea of \u201cObsession\u201d for a while. I was intrigued by the idea of of a guy being obsessed with a girl, or a girl being obsessed with a guy, and that going absolutely bonkers. But I hadn\u2019t cracked the story really yet, and then once I discovered the wish element of it, I realized that was my way in. It\u2019s about a guy who makes a wish that the girl was obsessed with him, and then she becomes crazy and it gets worse and worse. I was kind of shocked at how little that had actually been done.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is still grounded but has more of a supernatural element than \u201cMilk and Serial.\u201d Why was that something you wanted to explore?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s exciting to dive into a more supernatural element, but the thing that excites me about it is to do it from a different angle. I like to put ordinary people in an extraordinary situation that couldn\u2019t possibly happen in real life set in our real world. That excites me because then the possibilities are endless. What if you did a ghost movie, but it was set in the real world? In this case, it\u2019s a wish-gone-wrong movie, but you set it in the real world where the consequences and characters feel real. That was an angle I hadn\u2019t really seen. I want to do fantastical things, but I just want to ground them in the real world. I want the rules of life to still apply. If I were to do a superhero movie, it would feel so grounded. The reaction should feel very genuine. If you\u2019re learning to fly, what does that actually feel like? What psychological things are going through your head when you figure that out? How many friends would you call? That\u2019s exciting to me.<\/p>\n

\n\tIs shooting a superhero movie on your filmmaking bucket list?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI mean, it\u2019s not like I\u2019m racing to do it. If the right opportunity presented itself and it was something I could really sink my teeth into, I would do anything. It also would matter how far they would allow me to go with it. What would my creative control be? I just want to be a storyteller and tell good stories where characters change and they learn something, and maybe we learn something too.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas it always your goal to go from making short-form videos on the internet to directing a feature? Was there ever a pinch-me moment for you once you wrapped shooting?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, it\u2019s a dream come true. I always aspired to be in the traditional world. When we first moved out, we just wanted to get our foot in the door. Now, I\u2019m doing it. It\u2019s absolutely insane how quickly it happened to me because it was kind of an overnight thing with TIFF at least, and my life has really not been the same since. One of the pinch-me moments was recently when I\u2019m walking down the street and I see the \u201cObsession\u201d billboard next to the carwash that I always get my car washed at. I remember my agent looking at me after TIFF \u2014 this is someone who\u2019s had clients that have made it and who knows this industry is like \u2014 saying to me, \u201cYour life is never going to be the same. Your life just changed.\u201d I was hearing him and taking that in, but also being, like, we\u2019ll see. It\u2019s too much for a human to comprehend at that time.<\/p>\n

\n\tDo you have an explanation for how the One Wish Willow works and what actually happened to Nikki?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tAs a writer, it\u2019s only important to keep in mind the details that matter for the story. I only need to know as much as what will help me push the story forward and whatever is important for the audience and characters to know. Everything else, it\u2019s kind of fun that it lives in this ambiguous world. What I\u2019ve also learned from doing internet content from a lot is that people will tell you what the answers are. It\u2019s almost like they\u2019ll do the work for you if you let them. With my short film \u201cThe Chair,\u201d there are so many theories people have come up with, and I\u2019m kind of just \u201cyes and-ing\u201d it, because why not? If it\u2019s in the movie, I could probably tell you the answer because it pertains to the story, but the moment you start asking questions for things that the movie never really dives into, the lore doesn\u2019t matter too much. But I get it because it does matter to people. I think one day, if I wanted to, I could come up with all the rules. I don\u2019t know where Nikki is. She\u2019s in some sort of purgatory. She\u2019s being held somewhere, and it\u2019s not good.<\/p>\n

\n\tWas that always the ending you had in mind? Safe to say, it was never going to be a happy ending for Bear and Nikki?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, definitely. Bear and Nikki get their endings, and everything\u2019s kind of wrapped up at the end. The only thing that is different is there was an alternate ending where Nikki does kill herself.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy didn\u2019t you use that ending?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt was in the script, that\u2019s what was supposed to happen. She originally woke up, like she does in the movie, with the gun already in her mouth, because you can see that she\u2019s about to do it. She wakes up and sees this gun, and she\u2019s like, \u201cOh my God, where am I? What was I about to do?\u201d She looks around, sees Bear and pushes him off of her. She realizes this is the first time she\u2019s had any control over herself in a while. She puts the gun in her mouth again and ends it all because of the horror that she\u2019s been through. We just decided that it was more brutal if she stays alive.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat did you learn going from your short film \u201cMilk & Serial\u201d to directing this feature-length film?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tThis is the first feature that I ever edited. It\u2019s a bigger project than editing shorts. Telling a story and holding the audience\u2019s attention for that long is a different beast than holding the attention of an audience for, 10, 20, 30 minutes. I was growing that muscle. This movie felt like a bunch of kids getting together and doing something and hoping that the adults don\u2019t come home and tell us that we have to stop. I really felt like we were getting away with murder. I thought someone was going to tell us we have to tone it down or there were rules we had to follow. We were all really happy that never happened. We built the house, we put wallpaper up. Having a schedule was very different, like Monday through Friday, 12-hour days was so different than the \u201cMilk and Serial.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tI was reading that the only rule you had to follow was to cut back on the number of head smashes in the car scene to avoid an NC-17 rating.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, I was so upset about that at first and scared that it was going to change the integrity of the scene. I was scared to touch it, because I had already seen the reaction at TIFF. I didn\u2019t want to mess up whatever good is happening here. But it was fine. I think the integrity of the scene is still there. Whatever we were able to do, it works.<\/p>\n

\n\tWere there any other changes you had to make?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tJust things that were either notes from the producers, like runtime. I think this movie was running a little long, so I cut some things down. I would love to one day do a director\u2019s cut. There are so many things that have not been seen that that could add to a longer cut of this movie. That would be really exciting.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe need the full head-smash cut.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tPut those back in. Put in that alternate ending. We shot it, that was the original ending. Put back in her monologue at the car, where she talks about love and romance. Let this movie breathe just a little bit more. It would be fun to experiment and do a new cut of it.<\/p>\n

\n\tYour next film, \u201cAnything but Ghosts,\u201d has an even bigger cast than this one. What stage is that film at?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tWe just wrapped, seems like only two weeks ago. It\u2019s been a roller coaster, man. I haven\u2019t had a day off in, like, four months. It\u2019s been insane, like a non-stop train, but I love it. This is what my agent meant when he looked at me and said my life is going to change. I\u2019m so excited about \u201cAnything but Ghosts.\u201d It\u2019s very different than \u201cObsession,\u201d and that\u2019s exciting for me as a director to do something that\u2019s not exactly the same, but it does share tonality. It\u2019s still set in the grounded world. It should feel like, what would you do if you discovered ghosts were real? How would you react, and how would that emotionally affect you? These guys are con artists, and they don\u2019t even believe in ghosts. They call themselves ghost hunters, but they\u2019re just glorified magicians.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019ve worked with talented people before, but \u201cAnything but Ghosts\u201d features Aaron Paul and Bryce Dallas Howard, which is some big star power. What was it like directing them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tI was nervous at first, because I have very specific ideas of what the scene looks like for me. I didn\u2019t know what Aaron Paul\u2019s or Bryce Dallas Howard\u2019s process was going to be. I told my dad I was nervous to direct these really respectable actors, but he said, \u201cThey want to be directed and you\u2019re going to let them down if you don\u2019t give them direction.\u201d That really meant a lot to me. They want to be guided by me. The reason they said yes is because they liked me and \u201cObsession.\u201d After meeting Aaron and Bryce, they\u2019re literally both the most sweet people I\u2019ve ever met in Hollywood. They were so easy to work with and giving feedback and notes. They\u2019re so talented that I found myself having less to say because they had read the material and really understood it on such a deep level.<\/p>\n

\n\tYou\u2019re also acting in that one. Do you see yourself continuing to act in the films you direct?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tCooper and I are the two main characters of this. You\u2019ll see a lot of my face in that one. It was quite a challenge to be in front of the camera and behind the camera. But I\u2019m not going to force myself into movies just for the sake of it. If I see a character that I think I could play really well, then I might give it a go, but the movie is always going to be the most important to me.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat can you say about your upcoming take on \u201cTexas Chainsaw Massacre\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s gonna be grounded, brutal, raw. It should be very, very uncomfortable. I just want to nail the tone. I want to make you care about the characters that we\u2019re on the journey with. I want to give a deeper story to whoever is on this road trip. Just like Bear, Nikki and Sarah are characters that you never knew before \u2014 I mean, we all know Leatherface and the Sawyers \u2014 but what are the characters that I can invent that we can grow to care about. If they do die brutally, we\u2019ll actually be sad that they died. It was something that I had voiced to my team that I was really excited about. I knew A24 had just gotten the rights to it, and I was like, \u201cAs far as IP goes, that\u2019s something I would love to tackle.\u201d It was a match made in heaven and all the stars aligning at once for me to to get that one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPOILER ALERT: This article contains spoilers for \u201cObsession,\u201d now playing in theaters. Twenty-six year-old director Curry Barker started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":488367,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,327,34433,13473],"class_list":{"0":"post-488366","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-obsession","14":"tag-texas-chainsaw-massacre"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116586664728417217","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=488366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/488366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/488367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=488366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=488366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=488366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}