The two films that everyone is talking about at the moment are Obsession and Backrooms! Two films that are not only very good horror film debuts from talented young blood that originated straight from YouTube but they also managed to steal the spotlight away from the latest Star Wars film, The Mandalorian & Grogu! As the newest addition to a galaxy far and away completely crashed and burn at the box office in just it’s second weekend in theaters, Obsession and Backrooms was able to perfectly pick up that slack, with the former gaining some of the best box office legs from any film in recent memory and the latter awarding A24 their biggest opening weekend in their history.
To say this has opened the eyes and ears of the film industry would be a massive understatement! The success of these two films are clearly proving several points all at the same time! Not only is it proving that successful original films are indeed alive and well with a clear audience desire for them but it’s also proves that Gen Z does indeed love going to the movie theaters and are basically the group that is gonna help keep the movie theater going experience alive for the foreseeable future. You just need the right kind of films that is able to perfectly capture the hearts of the right kind of audience and they will show up in drones! While there have been plenty of other examples in recent memory to back up those claims, the success of Obsession and Backrooms is something truly special!
However, there have been a few bold claims that many are saying after these two horror flicks were able to give The Mandalorian & Grogu a run for it’s money this weekend! Not only does this mean that Star Wars as a whole is officially dead but blockbuster flicks based on long-running established IPs are officially dead! Never mind the fact that The Devil Wears Prada 2 was able to secure double the grosses that the original made just a month ago! Never mind the fact that The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is getting so close to a billion dollars that it can TASTE IT! Never mind the fact that the likes of Toy Story 5, Minions & Monsters, Moana (2026), Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Dune: Part Three, and Avengers: Doomsday are still having yet to come out for the rest of the year, short-budgeted horror films made by YouTubers is the ONLY future of filmmaking and Obsession and Backrooms is prove of that! I find that line of thinking to be incredibly flawed!
Don’t get me wrong, Obsession and Backrooms are both INCREDIBLE cinematic achievements for Curry Baker and Kane Parsons! I’m proud of the fact that these films are thriving whereas corporate slop like The Mandalorian & Grogu are being rejected! It’s prove that audiences do indeed have some bit of standards for the quality of today’s films that they chose to spend their hard earned money on, especially in our not practically great economy! But, let’s not get ahead of ourselves here, there is still a big place for big blockbuster films, it’s just that there is now a big place for original and thought provoking films as well!
Just imagine you are an owner of a movie theater right now! Would you be really applauding the fact that a big blockbuster film like The Mandalorian & Grogu is tanking hard at the box office all because previously lesser knowns films such as Obsession and Backrooms is killing it? Do you really want one big film to flop so hard that a couple of other smaller films can fill whatever sinking hole that other film caused? I’m pretty sure your answer is gonna be a clear no!
Movie theaters want and NEED both of these kind of films to succeed. They need the kind of films from beloved and established IPs to do absolute gangbusters at the box office AND they need the kind of lower budgeted and more independently made films released to help fill in that big hole in between each newly released big film that comes out to cover for any potential theatrical drought they might have. While I’m sure movie theater owners are more than happy that Obsession and Backrooms are selling tickets at a daily pace that I don’t anyone could possibly imagine, they would also prefer that The Mandalorian & Grogu would also be a big hit as well as a special icing on the cake.
The big question that everyone is asking after Obsession and Backrooms is what can Hollywood and movie studios learn from this? Should they take more changes with young and famous YouTubers and social media influencers and less on folks coming straight out of film school? Should they pump the brakes on corporate slop and remember to put quality over quantity with their biggest IPs? Should they just give up on big IPs such as Marvel and Star Wars all together because of their recent track record and invest more in originality of any kind? While those are the kind of questions that everyone is asking right now, I think one important one is being left out. That one question being: Why not leave room for more?
Why can’t we have huge blockbuster films that are huge events and potential billion dollar grossers every year AND also have impressive original films from young filmmakers that is also able to make bank at the box office each year? Shouldn’t we be encouraging BOTH of those kinds of films to exist side-by-side each other? It’s not like we have to live with one instead of the another, we can actually live in the best of both worlds for a change. There should be room for both big feature films AND little original films to shine! THAT is the kind of diversity and variety that the industry will need if they are to thrive in the future!
With more and more mergers coming into fruition, more independent films such as Obsession and Backrooms are needed now more than ever! After acquisitions such as Disney buying Fox and Paramount buying Warner Bros, it’s clear that studios are going to put the majority of their focus on pumping out big blockbusters films and less on smaller and more independent films. There will always be one or two of them that will be able to squeeze through the system but for the most part, you are likely to get more Minecraft movies than you would films like Sinners and One Battle After Another. Holes will need to be filled to plug in that gape for fresh and original films to still be able to shine, providing that variety of selected films made for theaters that major studios aren’t bothering to invest in anymore. That is where films like Obsession and Backrooms will be able to come in and why indie studios such as A24 and Focus Features exist.
I have nothing against main blockbuster films being released just as I have nothing against films like Obsession and Backrooms blossoming in theater screens before our very eyes. My question is: Why can’t we be championing both? We should be celebrating when good blockbuster films do well at the box office AND when good independent films do well at the box office as well. We don’t have to cancel one in favor of the other. And I’m sure movie theaters from all across the world would agree with what I just said.
After the success of Obsession and Backrooms and the underperformance of The Mandalorian & Grogu thus far, I do hope this isn’t so much a sign that audiences are tired of blockbuster films and hungry for strictly independent films but more that they are hungry for QUALITY and less on slop. While I know less than stellar films such as Lilo & Stitch (2025) and The Minecraft Movie were able to make big bucks at the box office with Minions & Monsters and Moana (2026) likely to join them next month, the fact that actual great recent films like Sinners, F1, Project Hail Mary, and now Obsessions and Backrooms were able to become the financial smash hits they did should be a statement that quality DOES matter for a film to be successful and not just brand recognition.
The biggest takeaway right now should be that audiences have a desire to see ANY kind of films in theaters that is guarantee to give them their full money’s worth. No matter if it’s a blockbuster or an independent film, audiences still want to go to movie theaters, studios just need to keep giving them a reason to do so. And the fact that it’s been confirmed that the past month has had the highest box office grosses for May since 2019 should speak volume to that!
Tune in next time after the studios learn the absolute WRONG lesson from everything I just said, while giving a blank check to MrBeast to direct whatever the hell he wants and Disney announces The Devil Wears Prada 3 and Toy Story 6 very soon!
Also, I might as well give my mini-reviews for both of these movies!
Obsession– Probably my favorite film of the year thus far! I don’t think I’ve seen a film where the whole message of “Be careful what you wish for!” has been executed this well and scary! The directing by Curry Barker is top notch, the performances are all great, it has a nice blend of horror thrills and laughter that I don’t any other director would be able to combine brilliantly, and the ending still haunts me weeks after seeing the movie. It’s also a nice little subversion to have the main protagonist practically being the villain of the film, being forced to face the consequences of the choice he made strictly for his own pleasure. Inde Navarrette deserves a damn Oscar for her performance and it’s yet another brilliant original horror film to go with all of the other brilliant horror films we have gotten so far this decade! Highly recommended! I give this a perfect four out of four stars!
Backrooms– I’m not quite sure I’m on the love boat with this one but I’m sure as hell on the respect boat. I love the original atmosphere and unique setting that Kane Parsons has created here, making the backrooms itself a fascinating place to explore whenever we are able to get to it. I did wish the overall narrative had more meat to it and Parsons didn’t have to keep coming up with contrived excuses for his characters to keep showing up to the backrooms. And I’m still scratching my head on the resolution to the whole thing. However, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Renate Reinsve are great here and there are still plenty of seeds that have yet to be grown in the world that is Backrooms. I can see this being a series of films that only gets better from here on out. I give this a three out of four stars!
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