Mama Bear, Obsession Director Curry Barker's New Project Is Now Out On YouTube

Barker's calendar is now filling up. Anything But Ghosts, a horror comedy he directed, edited and co-wrote with Tomlinson, reaches cinemas in the United States on 7 May 2027 via Focus Features, with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster and Spooky Pictures among its producers. Barker and Tomlinson both star, and Aaron Paul joins the cast. Tomlinson has described the tone as Key and Peele wandering into HereditaryWhen your first feature film collects more than $500 million worldwide, the usual next move is a long lunch with a studio chief and dreams of even bigger films. But Curry Barker isn't exactly the one to follow rules, now, is he? The Obsession director is back on YouTube with Mama Bear, a five-minute horror short released just ahead of Halloween. Sponsored by Windows (yes, that Windows), it's roughly five minutes long and comes months before his horror-comedy titled Anything But Ghosts. Here's everything to know about it.

Mama Bear premiered on Thursday, 29 October, at 9pm IST. It's currently available on That's a Bad Idea, the YouTube sketch channel that Barker runs with his creative partner Cooper Tomlinson, and it costs nothing to watch.

So we open with Floyd, a young man trying to get a good nap, but the phone has other plans. His call history is filled with missed calls, and the final frantic call he receives in the short is from a friend warning him that Lacy is out to get him. Why? We don't really know, except that there seems to be a sleep-paralysis demon-like double of Floyd that jumps into his house out of nowhere.

As for whether it's connected to Obsession, it doesn't seem like it, although the title of the short, Mama Bear, shares its name with the lead from Obsession. Also, spoiler warning here, both the leads don't make it to the end. That's all about it as far as parallels go.

Barker's calendar is now filling up. Anything But Ghosts, a horror comedy he directed, edited and co-wrote with Tomlinson, releases on 7 May 2027 via Focus Features, with Blumhouse-Atomic Monster and Spooky Pictures among its producers. Barker and Tomlinson both star, and Aaron Paul joins the cast. Tomlinson has described the film as Key and Peele wandering into Hereditary.

Beyond this, Barker is set to write and direct a reimagining of Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at A24.

The family business is expanding too. Medium Rare, a psychological horror short from Barker's father, Jeff Barker (a script consultant on Obsession), stars Dane Cook and Lesley Ann Warren, with Sarife also set to appear.

For now, Mama Bear is five minutes of evidence that Barker still has a soft spot for the platform that launched him. Open That's a Bad Idea on YouTube, dim the lights and take the call.

Or, if you're in a hurry, just watch it below: