Curry Barker learned the hard way that Resident Evil director Zach Cregger’s advice about his script was worth following. Barker admitted he should have followed advice from a fellow horror director while shooting his next movie, Anything But Ghosts.
Barker discussed the experience while marking the one-year anniversary of his breakout film, Obsession, at the Toronto International Film Festival. The 26-year-old director said the biggest problem was the size of his script compared with the short shooting schedule.
“We had a 130-page script, and we had 26 days to shoot it,” Barker explained via Deadline. “I’m also starring in it and directing, and I’m the lead character. I have more lines than anyone in the movie.”
Before filming began, Cregger reportedly warned Barker that the script needed to be shorter. “Zach Cregger just told me, ‘You have to cut 30 pages’ and I probably should have listened to him. So did my manager; he told me that, too,” Barker said.
Barker decided to keep the full script anyway. “I didn’t cut a single page because I wanted to shoot all of it,” he admitted. The decision made the production much harder, forcing the crew to remove planned shots and cut back on coverage as filming went on.
What do we know about Curry Barker’s Anything But Ghosts?
Produced by Jason Blum, Roy Lee and Steven Schneider, and Adam Hendricks and Greg Gilreath, Anything But Ghosts is a horror comedy set in the same world as Obsession. Barker co-wrote the movie with Cooper Tomlinson.
The story follows two fake paranormal investigators who make money by staging supernatural events for clients. Their usual tricks stop working when they accidentally come across real supernatural forces. Tomlinson described the movie’s tone as “like if Key and Peele walked into Hereditary.”
Barker and Tomlinson also lead the cast, which includes Aaron Paul, Bryce Dallas Howard, Violet McGraw, and Chris Reinacher. The movie is expected to mix comedy with darker horror as the two con artists try to escape the situation they created.
Anything But Ghosts is currently listed for a 2027 release, although Focus Features has not announced a specific release date.
