disco inferno

William Teason - book cover for "We Have Always Lived in the Castle"

can we? 🥺

wonderful news!! curry barker is one of my favorite (if not my favorite, hands down) short horror directors. as someone who has watched hundreds and hundreds of short horror films on youtube.

here are five of his films with the runtime and a quick summary of each. (sorry if i miss any, these are what i remember off the top of my head!) i've avoided spoilers beyond the basic premise, but every single one of these deals with Absolutely Haunting Thematic Shit:

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THE CHAIR - 25 minutes

when horror connoisseurs hear "curry barker," they usually think of the chair first. barker was approached to make this into a full-length film & pitched obsession instead... GREAT choice, as i don't think the chair would Work with extra runtime.

a man finds an old chair on the side of the road and brings it home to his girlfriend. strange events begin to unfold -- his girlfriend's behavior becomes increasingly erratic, he's losing time, he's unraveling at the seams....

if you enjoyed the fucked-up relationship dynamics in obsession then you will probably have a good time.

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MILK & SERIAL - 62 minutes

barker's other best-known horror film. a twisty found footage thriller about youtube pranksters whose pranks Go Wrong (TM).

i can't say much more than that.... if you watched obsession and thought "pretty good, but pretty predictable. i wonder how curry barker would handle a psychological thriller with more plot twists??"

boy, does this film have an answer!!

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ENIGMA - 20 minutes

this is a psychological thriller about a man dealing with the impending end of the world. explores how other people are also dealing with the end of the world.

i fear i'll give a skewed impression if i say this one is sort of a feel-good film..... but OF the films on this list, it's Certainly the most optimistic. my partner rafi (who really hates depressing horror) watched it with me and concluded, "oh, that was kind of sweet, actually!!"

this one's great if you want a palate cleanser after The Unrelenting Gutwrenching Horror of obsession.

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WARNINGS - 20 minutes

my personal favorite!! criminally underrated!! upsetting in a way that stuck to my skin for days!!

a man starts receiving strange written warnings on halloween. things around him begin to unravel.

similar to the chair in its unsettling surreality, but with a bit more supernatural influence imo. you'll recognize a lot of parallel imagery to obsession, especially with Strange Movement and Nightmare Experiences.

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HEAVY EYES - 5 minutes

the shortest one on this list if you just want to dip your toes in real quick... a pretty easy time investment if you've never watched short horror and aren't sure if you'll like it!

a boy's mom comes home unexpectedly at night.

the only problem?? she's still texting him from the hospital where she works.

direct orders of "you really really need to kill this guy" ignored: 1

every fat person you know for the most part probably has a story like this, of medical neglect. many of the stories i've heard personally are when the complaint or the doctor wasn't related at all, like being told to lose weight at the ear nose and throat doctor or at the dentist. it's straight up just bias. it's such a thing that in the show Shrill it's portrayed, when Aidy Bryant goes to the gynecologist and her doctor suggests she get gastric bypass.

the studies on health and fatness are simply not that black and white and there is basically no research that shows that more than an incredibly tiny minority of people can lose weight and keep it off for more than like 2 years. bodies have set points that they gravitate towards, it's not a personal failure. this also is how the weight loss industry succeeds so well - repeat customers.

some of the harm associated with fatness is also due to weight cycling, which is very hard on your body and is even worse if you get off a GLP1, which according to a recent study causes weight to be regained at a rate that is 4x faster than without taking a GLP1.

you don't have to hate yourself. you don't have to hate other people for their body type either. it makes me so sad to see the thinspo tag going around again in 2026 a lot like it was back in the day.

some resources to learn more here:

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/feeling-fat-may-be-worse-for-you-than-being-fat-idUSTON079061/