Old School. Biblically Independent.
By Jen Maravegias | News | October 30, 2026
Curry Barker, now known for this year’s much-hyped horror hit, Obsession, has returned to YouTube with a new short, Mama Bear, just in time for Halloween.
It’s five minutes of panic and confusion that’s straight out of a “write a horror story in 250 words or less” challenge. Jon Lee Richardson sells the hell out of it, though. Maybe Barker’s true gift is finding actors who can pull off his unhinged characters so well that we disregard the rest of the project’s failings.
YouTube is a hotbed of development deals for indie filmmakers right now. There are a lot of horror movies coming out in the next year or two that started as YouTube videos or as a creepypasta. So now, when I watch things like this, I’m jaded and assume that it’s an exercise. A step towards creating a full-length film.
In Obsession, the main idea of not messing with magic you don’t understand has been mined by plenty of previous films. Mama Bear’s big reveal has been underutilized in pop culture, but it’s not new.
Stephen King told us this story in The Outsider, which HBO released as a successful limited series just a few years ago. And that was all I could think about at the end of Mama Bear.
The Thing, John Carpenter’s remake of 1951’s The Thing from Another World, still reigns as king of doppelganger movies (with all due respect to 1993’s Doppelganger).
Every storyteller will put their own spin on our twice-told tales and spooky classics. But those are two very big shoes to fill, Curry Barker.
In Hollywood’s rush to make hay out of YouTube’s growing horror movie incubator, I hope they don’t mistake viral sensation for quality.
Barker’s next full-length film, horror-comedy Anything But Ghosts, is expected in May of 2027.
