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'Obsession' filmmaker Curry Barker broke down what it took to create the flowers scene in his record-breaking horror film that features Michael Johnston as the character Bear and Inde Navarrette as Nikki. He also opened up about what it's been like having moments from the film become memes, what's surprised him the most about the success of the movie and what he thinks Hollywood can learn from it on set of his THR cover shoot.

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00:00Hi, I'm Curry Barker, and I'll be breaking down the flower scene from Obsession.
00:06Nicky, where are you?
00:11What?
00:14Nicky, what are you doing?
00:18Why don't you love me?
00:22Nicky? Nicky, where are you?
00:24That first shot you see where she screams and the camera is panning left and right.
00:29We didn't have the proper gear head, you know, when you're so low budget, like there's endless amounts of equipment
00:34that you can have for a camera that do the most niche thing you can do, but we just couldn't
00:40afford the proper equipment.
00:41And so even to just achieve that, like, quick pan, we had to shoot it kind of actually slowly and
00:47then speed it up in post.
00:53When she actually finally walks in, that's not actually Indy Never Ready, that's Ayana, a dancer who we hired to
00:59have those really creepy movements walking across the room.
01:05What do you want me to do?
01:08For Sandy, okay?
01:13Yeah, Indy lays in bed and Bear tries to get up and she yells stay as he is about to
01:19leave.
01:20The thing that I wanted to do there is, like, just hold on that moment for quite a while and
01:25you don't know if he's going to get up or if he's going to try to go back to sleep.
01:28You don't know what he's going to do.
01:29But then the moment you realize that he's trying to get out of bed, she screams stay.
01:35I think we only did, like, one or two takes of that.
01:39Max.
01:46Stay!
01:49I don't think it took much for Indy to get there.
01:52The script says stay.
01:53Like, it says the word stay and it really worked.
01:56The original scene was actually slightly different.
02:01We had Indy was in the corner and then she comes up to Bear and she's like, love crystal.
02:05And she does this weird thing where she starts, like, poking him with a crystal and he's like, stop, stop.
02:09And it was really weird.
02:12When we were shooting and I was like, I don't know if this is working.
02:14But the flower thing was an idea that I had a little bit later.
02:18It's a very technical scene.
02:21And when you're trying to achieve something that's not conventionally scary or normal, it's hard to get everyone on set
02:29to wrap their head around what you're trying to do.
02:33And even for me, like, watching this stuff, just kind of, like, being like, oh my gosh, I hope this
02:38is, like, working and is creepy because I know what I want the scene to be.
02:42But you're not relying on a jump scare.
02:44There's nothing conventional really about it.
02:45So it's so nerve wracking to be on set and not really know if it's all working.
02:49And then even after you edit it, you really still don't know until you finally get it in front of
02:53a crowd.
02:54And then you're like, oh my gosh, it's, you know, these beats are hitting the way that I wanted them
02:57to hit.
02:57So we had, like, a test screening where I got to see reactions for the first time.
03:04And what's funny is, like, people that I would show the scene to at home, they didn't react.
03:09Like, Cooper never reacts to anything, which is, like, funny.
03:14But I'm always showing Cooper first because he just lives upstairs, so it's easy to just show him.
03:18But he never reacts to anything, so I'm always, like, basing if it's working off of Cooper, which I'm learning
03:22isn't right because he just doesn't react to anything.
03:25But people were reacting to that test screening.
03:27That's when I knew.
03:27I was like, okay, thank God.
03:29Like, and some surprising reactions, like laughing when he lays back down and even laughing when she yells stay and
03:37he lays back down for that.
03:39Like, that got a laugh, and I don't know if I ever expected it to get the amount of laughs
03:43that it's getting.
03:44I knew that there were moments in this movie that possibly could become memes.
03:49I mean, obviously, you hope and dream, but I didn't anticipate that this whole movie would become a meme.
03:54I mean, like, people are just using, you know, her face is a meme when she's smiling, when she's frowning.
04:00The dinner scene at Little Tony's, it's all becoming kind of a meme.
04:03It's really funny.
04:03I'm just surprised at how it's breaking so many records as far as, like, being compared to ET and now
04:11just be paranormal activity.
04:13I mean, what the heck is going on?
04:16Like, that's how I feel because it's just like, even if this was a success, I never expected it to
04:21be breaking records.
04:23And it's just an unbelievable thing that's happening, and it's beyond me at this point.
04:28It's not even mine anymore.
04:31This movie just belongs to the world now, and they're going to come up with their own ideas of what
04:36it means and what it is.
04:38And I think that's really cool.
04:39I think that Hollywood can learn maybe that to let people have creative freedom, and I think that the strongest
04:46art comes from typically one person's mind.
04:51I mean, like, collaboration is the best thing in the world, but when there's not too many people intervening on
04:55the final product, that's when the best art can come out, I think.
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