‘Obsession’ Sweeps the 2026 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards With Five Major Wins

Curry Barker’s Obsession has emerged as the big winner of the 2026 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards, taking home five prizes including Best Wide Release Movie, Best Director and Best Screenplay in a ceremony that celebrated horror across film, television, gaming and genre culture.

The film also earned Best Lead Performance for Inde Navarrette, while its much-discussed brick sequence claimed the fan-voted Best Kill category. The result gave Obsession the strongest showing of the night and underlined the film’s impact across both creative and performance categories.

Kane Parsons’ Backrooms followed with three wins of its own. The feature took Best First Feature, while Jeremy Cox won Best Cinematography and Parsons shared Best Score with Edo Van Breemen.

Elsewhere, Dust Bunny was named Best Limited Release Movie, while V/H/S/Halloween took Best Streaming Premiere and Exit 8 claimed Best International Movie.

On the television side, Widow’s Bay won Best Series, while The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs was named Best Non-Fiction Series.

Amy Madigan picked up Best Supporting Performance for Weapons, adding another major honour to a category that also included performances from Jacob Elordi in Frankenstein, Elle Fanning in Predator: Badlands, Regina Hall in Scary Movie and Jack O’Connell in 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple.

Frankenstein also enjoyed success in the craft categories, with Kate Hawley winning Best Costume Design. The film was further recognised in the makeup field, while Jim Henson’s Creature Shop took Best Creature FX for Five Nights at Freddy’s 2.

The documentary prize went to In Search of Darkness: 1995–1999, continuing the long-running series’ celebration of horror history, while Resident Evil: Requiem won Best Video Game against competition including Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly Remake, Little Nightmares III, No, I’m Not A Human and Silent Hill f.

Fangoria also used this year’s ceremony to recognise individuals whose influence stretches beyond a single release. Editor-in-Chief Phil Nobile Jr. presented an Editor’s Eyeball Award to Joe Bird, whose recent credits include Talk to Me and Leviticus. A second Editor’s Eyeball Award went to James A. Janisse and Chelsea Rebecca, creators of Dead Meat, honouring their contribution to horror fandom.

Perhaps the night’s most crowd-pleasing honour went to Indy, the canine star of Good Boy, who received the Chainsaw Award for Goodest Boy following strong write-in support. Cujo star Dee Wallace presented the award alongside director Ben Leonberg.

The ceremony was hosted by Devon Sawa, with Michael Varrati writing and directing the show. Armen Aghaeian, Tara Ansley and Abhi Goel served as executive producers.

For anyone who missed the event live, the full 2026 Fangoria Chainsaw Awards ceremony is available to watch now on Shudder and YouTube.