E184 | Thinking Films: Obsession (2026)

It was pretty much one of those films where even as I was watching it, I was thinking of how relevant it might be for you guys.

And it's also worth pointing out that Horror in general is a really interesting genre right now.

I think for the past 10 years, we've gotten some really interesting films out of that genre.

I think there's quite a few reasons for that.

What you can find often, if you look at the history of films, is you find a new up-and-coming genre often is offering the stuff that's exciting and creative, but also risky.

And studios are often reluctant to take a risk on those kinds of films.

But eventually they do because there start to be really interesting examples of films made in that genre.

And then over time, as that genre gets more and more successful, it tends to ossify and the material coming out of that becomes more stale.

So you see that a lot with the comic book franchises, where if you go back to the year 2000 and you have films like X-Men coming out, These were films which were considered very risky, but they paid off.

They did well.

And then comic book films became a more reliable way for a studio to make money.

They reached their peak perhaps in the late 2000s, early 2010s.

And then the genre began to ossify and calcify.

And now we're really seeing the decline of comic book movies.

At the moment, I would say horror is where it's at.

And if you look at the past, say, 10 years or so, you have really, really interesting horror films, films like Hereditary, The Substance, Midsommar, Obsession, Backrooms, which also just came out.

I think horror really lends itself to creative expression.

These films are often very low budget.

They obviously use a lot of supernatural tropes.

And when you can use supernatural tropes and motifs, it means you can use symbolic language.

Because horror films necessarily are dealing with dark material, they're a wonderful vehicle for dealing with our anxieties and maybe some of the darker aspects of our nature.

So I've been excited at the whole slate of horror films that have come out recently.