I’m about to spoil the results of one of this year’s FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards categories, so if you don't want to know the winner of Best Lead Performance, it is your solemn duty to click here to watch the show on YouTube and find out who took home the statue.
For years, horror fans have lamented how often the Academy Awards overlooked standout horror films. I’ll fully admit that I am a proud owner of the extremely out-of-stock SuperYaki hat that reads “Nominate Toni Collette, You Cowards!” after she was snubbed for her incredible performance in Hereditary. Fortunately, the tide has most definitely been turning.
The Horror Show at the Academy Museum is one of the most incredible celebrations of our beloved genre ever curated, and horror has had a hot streak at the Oscars in recent years wth films like Weapons, Sinners, Frankenstein, Nosferatu, Godzilla Minus One, Poor Things, The Lighthouse, The Substance, and The Ugly Stepsister all honored with nominations or outright wins. And wouldn’t you know it? All of those films also won and were nominated at the FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards.
In fact, in years past, the Oscars have been aligned with us a number of times. The Silence of the Lambs, Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The Sixth Sense. Black Swan, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Sleepy Hollow, Shadow of the Vampire, The Cell, and even Hellboy II: The Golden Army were all shown some love at the Academy Awards as well as at the Chainsaws.
It’s not unheard of for the Academy to honor genre films in technical categories like Makeup and Hairstyling, Score, Sound Design, Costuming, and Visual Effects, but acting categories are a little harder to come by. It was a massive deal when Demi Moore was nominated for The Substance, an Oscar she sadly did not win, though she did take home the Chainsaw for Best Lead Performance.
After this year’s awards, it’s hard not to wonder if this year’s winner for Best Lead Performance, Inde Navarrette in Obsession, could defy the odds and nab an Oscar nomination herself. Entertainment pundits like The Hollywood Reporter already have Inde Navarrette as a frontrunner for Best Actress. Scott Feinberg even forecast her in the top spot, but only recently knocked her down to second after seeing Carrie Coon’s performance in the mystery-drama The Liberation. As Feinberg writes:
“This year’s Cinderella story is Inde Navarrette, the 25-year-old who was picked out of virtually nowhere to star in Obsession, and whose haunting performance helped to make it one of the most profitable movies ever and catapulted her onto the A-list. Sure, it’s a gory horror film, but that didn’t prevent the Academy from issuing Best Actress noms to other ingenues, from Sissy Spacek for Carrie to Natalie Portman for Black Swan; plus, a 25-year-old won Best Actress just last year for another pretty wacky movie (Anora’s Mikey Madison).”
Minor correction: Mikey Madison won two years ago, and while I wouldn't call Anora “wacky,” I get his point, especially in the year after Amy Madigan won for Aunt Gladys in Weapons, a significantly “wackier” performance.
But if Inde Navarrette could win in a stacked category that featured competitors like Emmy Award winner Peter Dinklage (The Toxic Avenger), Emmy nominee Adam Scott (Hokum), Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor (Backrooms), Academy Award nominee Rachel McAdams (Send Help), Academy Award winner Ralph Fiennes (28 Years Later: The Bone Temple), and the current Best Actress Oscar titleholder Jessie Buckley (The Bride!), there’s nothing that says Navarrette can’t pull it off.
Horror has never needed mainstream awards bodies to validate it, but it's still fun to scare the status quo with a reminder that we’re here, we’re talented, and we’re terrifying, isn’t it?
The 2026 FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards are now streaming on Shudder and YouTube.
