Horror films like Obsession are shut out of the Golden Globes – unless they pretend to be comedies

What do this year’s wish-gone-wrong tale Obsession, gross-out transformation bloodbath The Substance, and Jordan Peele’s generational masterpiece Get Out have in common? Well, they’re all modern horror success stories, with critics and at the box office, and they broke free of genre snobbery to become awards-season contenders.

They’re also toe-tapping laugh riots. At least that’s what the Golden Globes would have you believe.

The Globes present a conundrum for horror. Its major categories are split into either “drama” or “musical or comedy” and it’s fair to say neither of those is an obvious home for throat-ripping gorefests or white-knuckle ghost-train rides. So if you’re managing an awards push for a hotly tipped horror, what road do you take? The answer, often, is titters and tap-dancing.

That’s what has happened with Obsession. Per the Hollywood Reporter, Focus Features will submit it for consideration in the musical or comedy categories. This is despite the fact the movie is a pitch-dark story about what happens when a lonely man Bear (Michael Johnston) uses a magical trinket to force female pal Nikki (Inde Navarrette) to fall devotedly in love with him. The consequences are stark, with a descent into madness that includes Navarrette delivering some of the most terrifying facial expressions since Gordon Brown attempted to smile. The closest thing Obsession has to a knock-knock joke is when someone is graphically bludgeoned to death with a brick. Not exactly a zinger worthy of the Apollo.

But it’s easy to see how this impulse towards category chicanery arises. Traditionally, the drama category is where the big-hitters duke it out. This year, it’s likely to be a straight fight between Christopher Nolan’s exceptional take on The Odyssey and the Spanish LGBTQ+ epic La Bola Negra. That’s not to mention Dune: Part Three, which could ride a Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King-style wave if Denis Villeneuve can bring Frank Herbert’s books to a satisfying conclusion.

While the musical or comedy category looks uncommonly formidable this year – with Martin McDonagh’s fast-talking Wild Horse Nine set to battle Olivia Wilde’s summer hit The Invite and the small matter of the Michael Jackson biopic – it’s less intimidating than a straight fight with Nolan’s Homeric juggernaut.

As horror doesn’t fit neatly, it’s able to tactically pick its battles. In actuality, though, this makes it very difficult for horror to ever emerge victorious. Most horror fits more suitably into the drama category. The Exorcist won as a drama back in 1974, despite the fact it would go on to lose to The Sting at the Oscars, but even The Silence of the Lambs – the last film to complete a clean sweep of the Academy’s Big Five – struggled at the Globes, having been pitched as a drama. The only one of its Oscars it replicated at the Globes was for Jodie Foster.

Horror hasn’t fared too much better in the musical or comedy category. Tim Burton’s gothic bloodbath Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street did win in 2008, but that one genuinely had some Sondheim warbling amid the slashed throats.

It’s a sticky wicket for horror movies at the Globes. They are seldom seen as “worthy” enough to compete as dramas, but they feel like too much of a square peg in a round hole to be considered as viable musical/comedy winners. They’re essentially pushed aside like a lonely kid on Halloween with eyeholes cut into a bedsheet, desperate for someone to trick or treat with.

You may well argue that the Golden Globes don’t matter. The ceremony has often been dismissed as more obsessed with A-list stars than celebrating cinematic excellence and the whole thing almost went the way of the dodo in 2021 amid controversy around the lack of diversity in its voting body. So while it’s true that the Globes aren’t the be-all and end-all when it comes to awards season, they set the tone for the months to come. They’re often the first major awards to be handed out, giving momentum to winners and stalling the campaigns of those who lose out. And given the uphill struggle involved in getting horror even nominated at the Oscars, this sort of early-season momentum can be pivotal.

There’s one case, though, that the Obsession team might be looking at. Navarrette’s remarkable central performance is believed to be the movie’s best chance at scooping a statuette and there’s a recent precedent that may go in her favour. While The Substance’s status as a “musical or comedy” might have cost it a chance at the top prize, it did enable Demi Moore to win for best actress. And while a topsy-turvy race in that category would ultimately hand the Oscar to Anora’s Mikey Madison, Moore’s victory was a big moment for horror that Navarrette will hope to repeat.

Still, awards season remains an inhospitable place for horror movies. Obsession is a true breakout hit, cementing a new star in Navarrette and minting a directorial hot prospect in Curry Barker. But none of that will help it when it comes to the Golden Globes. Presumably, they should have put in a musical number.