YouTubers Are Making Horror Movies Now | Trash Taste #332

In 2024, a wave of horror films directed by YouTubers hit theaters, and the hosts of Trash Taste sat down to judge three of the biggest: Obsession, The Backrooms, and Iron Lung. The conversation reveals a clear hierarchy: YouTuber-made horror can be genuinely great when it has a tight concept and strong direction, but it can also fall into the trap of a creator doing too much themselves, resulting in a film that feels longer than its runtime.

The Gold Standard: Obsession

The clear favorite of the episode is Obsession, directed by Curry Barker. The hosts praise its deceptively simple premise: a man named Bear wishes for his crush, Nikki, to fall in love with him, only for the wish to turn her into a demonically possessed, obsessive partner. The film’s genius, they argue, is that it weaponizes the real, suffocating anxiety of a toxic relationship. "The horror that hits the hardest is when the horror comes from a kind of primal fear," one host notes. The film captures the feeling of "not knowing what she's going to do or what she's going to say... just this feeling of I can never fully feel at ease."