‘Obsession,’ a $750K Horror Hit, Enters Globes Comedy Race

Focus Features submitted Curry Barker’s “Obsession” — a film made for $750,000 that has grossed more than $500 million worldwide — to the Golden Globes as a musical or comedy, per Variety. The move puts breakout star Inde Navarrette directly into the comedy actress race, and it has ignited the loudest industry argument about “category fraud” in years.

Category fraud is exactly what it sounds like: campaigners enter a film or performance in a category where it doesn’t belong, usually to improve the odds of winning. A drama masquerades as a comedy. A lead actor campaigns as supporting. The Globes have seen it before, but this cycle the pushback is louder — and the targets are concentrated in the comedy field.

Is “Obsession” a comedy? There are laughs. But the film largely tracks a woman robbed of control over her own mind and body. Audiences, by and large, experienced it as horror. Strategists know the difference, and so do the Globes. What’s missing, as one Variety analysis puts it, is “the nerve to define it and, more importantly, enforce it.”

Not long after Focus made its move, Bleecker Street submitted Mike Leigh’s “Tender Loving Care” in the same comedy categories. Barely anyone blinked, perhaps because so few people have seen it. The film has drunken sing-alongs and kitchen dancing. It also has hospital visits and aging parents facing the end of life.

What does the rulebook actually say?

The current Globes rulebook states that a movie “primarily intended to have a serious or dramatic tone” with “comedic overtones or elements” belongs in drama. That’s fairly clear language. The catch is enforcement: the Globes make all decisions using their “sole discretion,” and final rulings come with no appeals process.

When a submission is disputed, a Globes-assembled committee reviews the case — whether it’s genre classification or a lead-versus-supporting campaign. Some strategists now try to get ahead of that committee by filing extra documentation, including filmmaker quotes and source materials, to justify their chosen category.

One top awards campaigner, quoted by Variety, says the truth usually wins out: “You have to be up front and honest with your filmmakers. It’s about what sets up the movie for success overall. And if you think both classifications are too competitive, ‘frauding’ your movie doesn’t make it easier. The opposite will happen.”

Precedent cuts both ways

The history here is not encouraging for rule-enforcers. In 2015, Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” — a film about a man stranded on Mars trying not to starve — won the Golden Globe for best motion picture comedy. In 2017, Universal entered Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” as a comedy and got away with it. In 2020, Focus tried the same play with “Promising Young Woman,” a revenge story about a friend’s assault; that time voters said no and moved it to drama.

The next test may already be queued up. Amazon MGM’s “Project Hail Mary,” with Ryan Gosling, will presumably come calling, and by the “Martian” standard it would have a claim on comedy.

Musicals raise a parallel problem. “Ray” and “Walk the Line” once competed as musical or comedy. In recent years, though, the Globes have emphasized that songs must propel the story forward, not appear as performances. That distinction sent “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis” to drama. By that standard, the classification of “Michael,” the Michael Jackson biopic starring Jaafar Jackson, remains open: whether its musical sequences are integral storytelling or re-created concerts could decide where it lands.

What does all this change for awards watchers? Mainly this: Navarrette now competes in a comedy field rather than a crowded drama one, and “Obsession” — a horror-adjacent phenomenon — could take a Golden Globe path that “Get Out” once took. The Globes could revisit their rules. But as any campaigner will tell you, there’s always a way to moonwalk around them.