Highly Anticipated 2026 Horror Movie Almost Got an NC-17 Rating, Here’s What Had to Be Removed

An upcoming 2026 horror movie nearly received an NC-17 rating.

Obsession is a new horror movie that is being released in United States theaters later this spring by Focus Features. Written, edited, and directed by Curry Barker, the movie stars Michael Johnston, Inde Navarrette, Cooper Tomlinson, Megan Lawless, and Andy Richter.

“After breaking the mysterious ‘One Wish Willow’ to win his crush’s heart, a hopeless romantic finds himself getting exactly what he asked for but soon discovers that some desires come at a dark, sinister price,” the official synopsis reads.

What had to be removed from the Obsession horror movie to avoid an NC-17 rating?

Obsession first held its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) back in September. Focus Features acquired the movie a few days after its premiere, and the movie was just screened at South by Southwest (SXSW).

According to Deadline, there’s one moment in Obsession that’s so violent that it initially resulted in an NC-17 rating from the MPA. The violence in that moment was trimmed down between the initial TIFF screening and the SXSW one.

“There was about six or seven more [head] smashes,” Barker said. “And we were getting an NC-17 rating. And so they were like, you’ve got to take out some of the smashes. And I was like, I’m not taking out a single bash. But I did.”

Despite this, Barker says the movie, and this moment, still feels “really f—ing hardcore.” He continued, “’d watch from the back of the theater and the way everyone reacted — whatever the number is now, it’s the right number…I just, like the honesty of human behavior. I just like to study human behavior and I think that that lends itself to comedy, and it does lend itself to horror. To be funny and relatable, you kind of have to look at the psychology of why people do things. And that kind of lends itself to this genre as well.”

Obsession has been getting great reviews from critics, as the film currently has a 97 percent Tomatometer score on Rotten Tomatoes with 35 reviews. The movie is getting a theatrical release on May 15, 2026.

Source: Comingsoon.net