Look, maybe my headline doesn’t make much sense at first glance, but neither does Curry Barker’s 2026 horror short Mama Bear. And considering I didn’t enjoy a single minute of this under-five-minute film, I don’t see why I should spend any more time trying to decipher what it all means. Although, it does seem like it might be set in the same universe as Barker’s hit film Obsession, and could perhaps be interpreted as a frenzied tale of a wish gone horribly wrong.
The plot is simple enough: Floyd (Jon Lee Richardson), a cleaner, is working at someone’s house when he receives a frantic call from a friend warning him that a woman named Lacey (Katie Sarife) is coming for him. And he doesn’t mean she’s dropping by for a friendly visit. It sounds like Lacey wants Floyd dead. A few creepy things happen, some violence follows, and before you know it, the film is over, complete with an obligatory last-second twist.
Mama Bear simply didn’t work for me. It wasn’t tense, shocking, unsettling, or even particularly creepy. There’s far too much screaming right from the beginning, barely any time to establish the characters, and precious little to make the ensuing madness feel meaningful. Plenty of five-minute films manage to pack an entire world into such a tight runtime, but here, everything feels like rehearsed chaos masquerading as horror. It’s loud, frantic and forgettable.
Still, it’s barely five minutes long, so watch it for yourself on YouTube and form your own opinion.
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