CURRY BARKER WANTS TO DIRECT ‘A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET’: LET HIM!

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May 13, 2026
CURRY BARKER WANTS TO DIRECT 'A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET': LET HIM!

This is a really big week for Curry Barker, who is about to see his big feature debut, Obsession, open in theaters everywhere. Focus Features is behind it, and the movie already has massive fan hype and support around it. Everyone who has seen it says the same thing: it’s crazy, brutal, intense, uncomfortable, and the kind of movie that stays with you for a very long time.

And that’s important when we start talking about why he is perfect for A24’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Curry Barker has a special knack for tension between characters. That uncomfortable feeling. That awkwardness. That pressure in a room where something feels wrong even before anything happens. That’s not something everybody can do. You can learn structure and filmmaking and all that shit, but some people are just wired differently. Some people are born with that ability.

And when you watch Obsession, you’ll understand exactly why Barker keeps talking about family when he discusses Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Everybody keeps hearing that and going, “Yeah, they already did the family thing.” They think about the 2003 remake or the Sawyer family mythology and all that stuff. But I don’t think that’s what he means at all.

Because The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was never really about gore. People remember it as this ultra-violent movie, but if you actually go back and watch it, it’s not that bloody. It’s not even really that violent compared to modern horror.

What it does have is atmosphere.

It has tension.

It has that feeling.

Watching it feels dirty. Exhausting. Uncomfortable. It feels real in a way that most horror movies don’t. The experience itself is what stays with you.

And that’s the thing Barker seems to understand.

He has that special juju that a lot of horror movies are missing right now.

Go look at the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake. The Friday the 13th remake. Some of the more recent Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies. They’re benign. You get your characters back. The studio gets its reboot. There’s a cool kill here or there. But they feel exactly like what you expected them to be.

The juju is gone.

You need a visionary to make these movies matter again.

And Curry Barker feels like a fucking visionary right now.

Which brings us to the thing that really caught my attention.

In a recent interview, Barker talked about also wanting to tackle A Nightmare on Elm Street someday.

“Obviously, everybody wants to do Nightmare on Elm Street,” Barker tells Polygon. “It’s kind of like the hot thing right now. I don’t even know who has the rights to that or what — I hear that the rights are pretty locked tight for that movie, but man, what a concept that has endless potential of nightmares and how trippy and weird and creepy they could get. I would love to take a crack at that.”

He further adds, “I know Lee Cronin (Evil Dead Rise, The Mummy) also just publicly said that he wanted to take a crack at it too,” Barker notes. “So I don’t know, but since you asked, that’s one that I would be excited about — probably a couple more, too.”

I disagree that everybody wants to take a crack at Elm Street. The truth is, nobody wants to be the guy who fucks up Freddy Krueger.

Nobody wants to be the filmmaker remembered for making the Nightmare on Elm Street remake that everybody hated. Nobody wants to make the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie that gets dumped onto Netflix and forgotten about a week later.

There’s real fear around touching these classic horror properties now.

Which is exactly why Barker saying it out loud is so interesting.

Because he doesn’t seem scared of any of it.

Watch his interviews. Watch the way he talks. Watch how he carries himself when asked a tough question. The guy has confidence. Real confidence. He carries himself like somebody who genuinely believes he can knock anything he touches out of the park right now.

And horror needs filmmakers like that again.

You can compare him to a lot of young filmmakers coming up right now, but Barker already feels different. More intense. More bold. More locked in creatively. He feels like somebody who understands exactly what kind of filmmaker he wants to become.

Could he stumble eventually? Sure. Every great filmmaker does at some point. But right now, he feels like the guy.

And if studios are smart enough to support him with the right people while still letting him be uncompromising creatively, I really do think he could become one of the next great horror directors.

Not just another franchise filmmaker.

One of the next greats.

Obsession opens this week. Watch it.

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