Obsession leads the Chainsaw Awards with five wins
Obsession won five prizes at the audience-voted Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, including directing for Curry Barker and lead performance for Inde Navarrette. Backrooms followed with three awards. The ceremony, shown on Shudder on October 25, also recognized television, games and emerging horror talent, with special honours for Joe Bird, the creators of Dead Meat and Good Boy’s canine performer Indy. Insidious actor Lin Shaye presented the evening’s final award to Obsession.
Arts··Morning
Obsession wins directing and performance honours
Obsession led the Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, the audience-voted horror awards, with five wins. Curry Barker received the directing award and Inde Navarrette won lead performance. The film also took the wide-release movie award and the screenplay prize for Barker. Its fifth win came in the write-in Best Kill category, for the scene identified as Brick Kill. The result put Obsession ahead of Backrooms, which collected three awards.[1], [2]
The thirty-second ceremony was shown on Shudder on October 25. Actor Devon Sawa, whose credits include Final Destination and Chucky, hosted. The eligibility period covered releases from July 2025 through June 2026, with awards spanning cinema, television and games.[1], [2]
Backrooms takes three awards
Backrooms won first feature, cinematography and score. Those awards went to filmmaker Kane Parsons, cinematographer Jeremy Cox and the scoring team of Parsons and Edo Van Breemen. Dust Bunny won limited-release movie, V/H/S/Halloween took streaming premiere and Exit 8 received the international movie award. Amy Madigan won supporting performance for Weapons.[2]
Frankenstein earned separate honours for Kate Hawley’s costume design and Mike Hill’s makeup effects. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop received creature effects for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. Beyond feature films, Widow’s Bay won series and Resident Evil: Requiem won video game. In Search of Darkness: 1995–1999 received documentary feature, while The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs took nonfiction series.[1], [2]
Special honours include emerging talent and a canine star
Joe Bird, known for Talk to Me and Leviticus, received an Editor’s Eyeball Award for his emerging career in horror. Another honoured James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, creators of the horror channel Dead Meat. Indy, the Nova Scotia retriever in Good Boy, received the special Goodest Boy award, presented by Cujo actor Dee Wallace.[1], [2]
Michael Varrati wrote and directed the ceremony. He described using the genre’s playful expectations for moments such as sending the host into a corn maze. Lin Shaye, known for Insidious, presented the evening’s final award to Obsession.[1]
