Accessing an int within a struct pointer's next* field

Question

I have a pointer to a Tasks struct which has three fields, tid,difficulty & next. I want to compare the difficulty of the next task from a task with a number but i'm getting the attached error when i try what you're seeing below:

struct Tasks
{
    int tid;                      /*Task's identifier*/
    int difficulty;               /*Task's difficulty*/
    struct Tasks *next;           /*Pointer to the next node*/  
};

struct Tasks* curr = (*player)->tasks_head->next;
if(curr->next->difficulty < difficulty) {...}

Here's how i'm allowcating memory for a new node:

struct Tasks* node = (struct Tasks*) malloc(sizeof(struct Tasks)); // could return null if not enough mem
    
if(node == NULL) return 0;
// add data to the new node
node->tid = tid;
node->difficulty = difficulty;
node->next = NULL;

Exception thrown: read access violation. curr->next was 0xCDCDCDCD

I thought i can dereference the next pointer by doing *(curr->next)->difficulty but that doesn't allow me to compile and i don't understand why.