Curry Barker's sophomore feature Obsession opened in theaters on May 15, 2026, following the word-of-mouth success of his micro-budget debut Milk & Serial. The film explores the psychological horror of manufactured desire - a story about a man who uses a novelty magic toy to strip away a woman's free will - and has already attracted significant attention for its emotional depth and unsettling imagery. For viewers eager to watch from home, the path to streaming is clear in outline, if not yet in exact timing.
Where Obsession Will Land - and When
The corporate structure of its distributors, Focus Features and Universal Pictures, points directly to Peacock as the film's eventual streaming home. Both studios operate under the NBCUniversal umbrella, which has historically channeled its theatrical releases onto Peacock once their cinema runs conclude. Given that most major studio films observe a theatrical window of at least two months before transitioning to streaming, viewers should expect Obsession to appear on Peacock sometime around August 2026.
For those unwilling to wait, pre-orders are already live on PVOD platforms in the United Kingdom, priced at £17.99. No equivalent pre-order option has been announced for other territories yet, which means international audiences currently have limited legal routes to watch the film from home.
Peacock operates on three subscription tiers:
- Select ($7.99/month or $79.99/year): Ad-supported entry tier with new NBC and Bravo seasons, but limited access to Peacock Originals.
- Premium ($10.99/month or $109.99/year): Full ad-supported access including originals, movies, next-day NBC and Bravo episodes, and live sports programming.
- Premium Plus ($16.99/month or $169.99/year): Ad-free viewing, offline downloads, and a 24/7 local NBC stream - though live events and select titles may still carry limited ads due to licensing constraints.
Streaming Across Borders - Why a VPN Matters
Streaming platforms are geographically restricted by design. When a studio licenses content to a platform like Peacock, those rights typically apply only within specific territories, usually the United States. Viewers in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere who attempt to access Peacock directly are blocked at the IP level - their location is identified, and access is denied. A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is the most widely used tool for working around these restrictions.
A VPN routes your internet connection through a server in a different country, masking your actual IP address and replacing it with one from the server's location. To Peacock's systems, a user connecting through a VPN server in the US appears to be a domestic user. The connection is also encrypted end-to-end, which means your browsing activity is shielded from your Internet Service Provider and other third parties who might monitor traffic on your network.
Beyond unlocking region-restricted libraries, a VPN provides several practical benefits for streaming specifically:
- ISP throttling - where providers deliberately slow down streaming traffic - is effectively bypassed, since your provider can no longer identify what type of content you are accessing.
- Connections on public Wi-Fi networks, which are inherently insecure, become substantially harder to intercept.
- Users in countries with heavy internet censorship or surveillance can access content and communicate more privately.
Two services stand out for streaming use cases in particular. ExpressVPN maintains a network of over 3,000 servers across dozens of countries and has a strong track record for consistent HD and 4K streaming quality. VeePN offers comparable global coverage - over 2,600 servers - at a lower price point, making it a practical option for viewers who prioritize value. Other reliable alternatives include NordVPN, recognized for its security architecture; Surfshark, which permits unlimited simultaneous device connections; CyberGhost, known for stable performance; and Private Internet Access, which emphasizes granular privacy controls.
One important caveat: not all VPN services maintain equal standards around data logging. A provider that stores connection logs defeats much of the privacy purpose. When selecting a VPN, it is worth reviewing the provider's privacy policy and checking whether it has been independently audited - a detail that distinguishes credible services from less accountable ones.
What Barker's Film Is Actually Saying
The mechanics of streaming may be the practical concern for most readers, but Obsession carries a thematic weight that Barker has been direct about in interviews. Speaking to publications including TIME and DiscussingFilm, Barker described the film's emotional core as deliberately grounded - deliberately resistant to fantasy-logic explanations. The magic wish is real within the film's world, but Barker has said his focus was always on what happens after: the portrait of a man who chooses to sustain a relationship built on coercion rather than dismantle it.
"Any time you wish for something, it's probably going to be selfish," Barker told TIME. "Love should be earned. Anything that's not that probably isn't going to work out." In Barker's telling, the true horror is not the supernatural possession that consumes Nikki, but the quiet, insidious choice Bear makes to keep it going - the preference for a hollow, compliant facsimile over the vulnerability of genuine connection. That framing positions Obsession as something more than a genre exercise. It is, by design, a film about the violence embedded in possessive fantasy.
