The King of Horror has given his stamp of approval to Obsession, this year’s breakout hit horror movie.
Stephen King, the prolific author of best-selling horror novels including It, Carrie and The Shining, applauded the May release Tuesday in a two-line review on Threads.
“I gave OBSESSION a B+ in my movie book, but I keep thinking about it,” King, 78, wrote of YouTuber Curry Barker’s directorial feature film debut. “That weird mixture of humor and horror.”
Obsession — which follows the dangerous consequences of a hopeless romantic’s (Michael Johnston) naive wish for his crush (Inde Navarrette) to love him back — has been a massive box-office success, grossing over $297 milion worldwide off a micro-budget of approximately $750,000 to $1 million.
It has earned major plaudits from critics and a 94 percent score on the popular review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
In her four-star review, The Independent’s Clarrisse Loughrey labeled Obsession “one of the creepiest horror movies of 2026.”
The new sensation marks 26-year-old Barker’s first feature film. He previously directed the 2024 found-footage, prank-themed horror Milk & Serial, which he shot for $800 and uploaded directly to YouTube.
Obsession’s theatrical release coincided with that of fellow YouTuber Cane Parson’s directorial debut, Backrooms, a horror film adapted from his popular YouTube series about liminal spaces. The movie has similarly taken the box office by storm.
The success of both projects signals a fresh direction for the genre, leading Loughrey to declare that “the future of horror is on YouTube.”
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“Gone is any feeling of Gothic tenderness, of the misunderstood going bump in the night. Here, the generation exposed to what feels like only the very worst of the world has responded in kind, with horror in which punishment is swift, nasty, and arguably well deserved,” she added. “Obsession is delicately handled work, unafraid to find pockets of humor.”
Meanwhile, King, who often shares his opinion about TV and film online, recently directed his followers’ attention to Apple TV+’s new dark comedy, Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed.
Starring Tatiana Maslany as Paula, a newly divorced mom who becomes convinced she witnessed a crime, the show centers on her spiral into a rabbit hole of blackmail, murder and youth soccer.
Comparing it to the streamer’s Matthew Rhys-led comedy horror series Widow’s Bay, King argued that it was “even better.”
“It’s like Hitchcock came back to do it one more time,” The Long Walk author said on X. “And Tatiana Maslany is so good. The play of emotions on her face is pretty incredible. She goes from comic to terror in an instant.”
Last September, he also revealed his list of 10 favorite films of all time, which consisted of Sorcerer (1977), Godfather 2 (1974), The Getaway (1972), Groundhog Day (1993), Casablanca (1942), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Jaws (1975), Mean Streets (1973), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Double Indemnity (1944).
