What Curry Barker’s Anything But Ghosts Might Actually Mean

Curry Barker is on a filming streak these days after the massive initial success of Obsession (2026). The film’s impact not only elevated his profile as a YouTuber-turned-director but also reinforced his reputation for crafting emotionally intense, tonally unpredictable stories.  ​

Focus Features will distribute Curry Barker’s Anything But Ghosts, which has just wrapped production. The film marks a noticeable but intentional shift in direction, treating the supernatural not as part of a fantasy world but as an absurd disruption within a humorous reality.​

Plot details of Curry Barker’s Anything But Ghosts

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According to Bloody Disgusting, Anything But Ghosts is about two con artists who fake paranormal activities and trick old women and single dads. The artists are really good at putting on a show, as nobody can guess they are behind flickering lights and tables shaking with their special equipment. It’s not long before they meet a very dark entity while they are busy scamming people.​

The film’s plot resembles that of Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996). It was a horror comedy starring Michael J. Fox. Fox plays the fake ghost hunter so that people pay him to cleanse their houses.​

The cast includes Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, Last House on the Left), Bryce Dallas Howard (Jurassic World, The Village), and Violet McGraw (M3gan, The Haunting of the Hill House). Curry Barker and longtime collaborator Cooper Tomlinson are also in the film as ghost hunters.​

Barker co-wrote the film with Tomlinson (Obsession, Milk & Serial). Blumhouse-Atomic Monster, Spooky Pictures, and Divide/Conquer are producing the film.​

What does the title “Anything But Ghosts” suggest?

The fraudulent paranormal investigation is the core theme of the film, which is the whole story behind the title. On the surface levels, since the protagonists like to live in a world of denial of the supernatural, they believe that ghosts are “not supposed to exist.” This fits perfectly with the idea that they refuse to believe in ghosts. 

The phrase could also be taken as casual and conversational, as if protagonists are saying, “We can deal with anything…just not ghosts.” This matches the horror-comedy tone because it sets up something extreme to happen with more iconic tension, making the arrival of a real ghost feel even more unruly. 

Horror-comedy is hard to pull off — Can Curry Barker crack the formula? 

Barker clarified that Anything But Ghosts is quite different from Obsession because it includes comedy. The tonal contradiction is there as the movie treats the supernatural as an intrusion into an otherwise ordinary and funny reality. The real demons want to be ruthless in a world where “ghosts are not real.”​

The previous work of Barker and Tomlinson gives a pretty strong clue about how this film would be. The premise itself, two fake paranormal investigators encountering a real entity, feels very connected to their earlier work. Barker and Tomlinson ensure that comedy does not come at the surface level but rather is embedded in socially awkward reactions, scam-artists’ improvisation, believable friendship dynamics, and characters trying to maintain control while reality collapses around them.​

Though Barker’s previous endeavors with extreme horror have been magnificent, setting it into horror-comedy could be a good idea as well. What made this YouTuber an instant hit with the movies is the tonal manipulation, moving away from just shock or brutality.​

Horror-comedies are tricky and hard to execute, as the balance between comedy and horror needs to be memorable. Excessive horror kills the fun, while bad comedy kills the fear. Many horror-comedies fail quietly, while some have strong audiences and long lifespans, such as Ghostbusters (1984), Scream (1996), and Shaun of the Dead (2004).

Though Barker embracing this risk could ultimately work in his favor creatively, as he has worked on tonal instability before. The actual question is whether Barker can scale his internet-born, discomfort-heavy style into a feature that maintains comedic momentum and genuine supernatural tension.