Curry Barker's Obsession opened in theaters on May 15, 2026, building on the word-of-mouth momentum of his debut micro-budget feature Milk & Serial and arriving with serious expectations from horror audiences. The film centers on a quietly unsettling premise: a man uses a magical novelty toy to make a woman fall in love with him, only to discover that love without consent creates something monstrous. For viewers who want to watch it outside a theater - or outside the regions where it is currently available - here is a full breakdown of where Obsession is headed and how to access it from anywhere.
What Obsession Is Actually About
Bear, the film's protagonist, is a soft-spoken record store employee who has long harbored feelings for his coworker Nikki. Rather than act on those feelings honestly, he uses a novelty wishing toy called a "One Wish Willow" to force her affection. The wish succeeds in the most literal and destructive sense: Nikki falls madly in love with him, but at the cost of her autonomy. She becomes an obsessive, dangerous presence - not a person, but a projection of Bear's desires made terrifyingly flesh.
Writer and director Curry Barker has been direct about the film's emotional argument. Speaking to TIME, Barker stated: "Any time you wish for something, it's probably going to be selfish," and framed the film's central message plainly - "Love should be earned. Anything that's not that probably isn't going to work out." The real horror, in Barker's view, is not what happens to Nikki but what Bear chooses to do afterward: rather than reverse the wish or reckon with what he has done, he sustains a relationship that was never real. The magic merely externalizes a pattern of thinking - possessive, self-justifying, unwilling to accept rejection - that exists without any supernatural assist.
When and Where to Stream Obsession
Because Obsession is a Focus Features and Universal Pictures release, and both studios fall under the NBCUniversal corporate umbrella, its streaming home after the theatrical window will almost certainly be Peacock. Films from this distribution pipeline typically land on the platform after a standard theatrical exclusivity period - generally a minimum of two months. With a May 15 release date, viewers can reasonably expect Obsession to arrive on Peacock sometime around August 2026, though no official date has been confirmed.
Peacock offers three subscription tiers for U.S. viewers:
- Select ($7.99/month or $79.99/year): Ad-supported entry tier; includes new seasons of NBC and Bravo content but not full access to Peacock Originals.
- Premium ($10.99/month or $109.99/year): Ad-supported standard tier; unlocks Peacock's full originals library, movies, next-day NBC and Bravo episodes, and live sports programming.
- Premium Plus ($16.99/month or $169.99/year): Ad-free viewing with offline downloads and a live 24/7 local NBC feed; note that certain live events and select titles may still carry limited ads under separate streaming rights agreements.
For viewers who cannot wait, PVOD (premium video on demand) pre-orders are already live in the United Kingdom, priced at £17.99. No U.S. PVOD window has been announced at the time of writing.
How a VPN Lets You Watch From Anywhere
Streaming rights are territorial by design. A studio may license a film to one platform in one country and to a different platform - or no platform at all - in another. This means that even when Obsession arrives on Peacock, viewers outside the United States may find the service either geo-blocked entirely or missing the title in question.
A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, addresses this by routing your internet connection through a server located in a country where the content is available. From the streaming service's perspective, the request appears to originate from that server's location, not your actual one. The connection is also encrypted end-to-end, which protects your browsing activity from your internet service provider, network administrators, and anyone monitoring traffic on the same connection.
Beyond unlocking region-restricted libraries, VPNs carry practical privacy value: they mask your IP address, reduce the data your ISP can log about your viewing habits, and can in some cases improve connection stability by bypassing ISP-level bandwidth throttling applied to high-traffic streaming destinations.
Two providers worth considering for streaming use:
- ExpressVPN: A large network of over 3,000 servers worldwide, with a strong reputation for consistent speeds suitable for HD and 4K playback.
- VeePN: A more budget-conscious option operating across 2,600-plus servers globally, optimized for steady streaming performance without the premium price point.
Other well-regarded options include NordVPN, known for combining strong security with fast connections; Surfshark, which allows unlimited simultaneous device connections; CyberGhost, with a broad and reliable global server footprint; and Private Internet Access, which emphasizes privacy features and user configurability.
One important caveat: using a VPN to access content in a region where you are not a subscriber may conflict with a platform's terms of service. It does not typically violate law in most jurisdictions, but users should be aware of the distinction. Free VPN services also warrant scrutiny - many sustain their business model by logging and monetizing user data, which is precisely the outcome a privacy-conscious viewer is trying to avoid. Paid, audited providers with transparent no-logs policies represent a meaningfully different risk profile.
