(Photo credit credit to Marc Bernardin)
Written by Colleen Bement, Editor
The genre kids cleaned up at the Oscars — and it was glorious.
Last night at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, something unusual happened at the Academy Awards: the weird and the wild actually won. The Oscars were presented and the sci-fi, horror, and animated genre won some of the biggest awards of the night. It was refreshing to see the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences reward some of the most creative movies that often get left out of award ceremonies. Especially with Horror movies. Sinners, Frankenstein, and Weapons were some of the best in the genre that we’ve seen in a long time, and many might argue that Sinners should have won Best Picture. Yet even without the Best Picture title, it took home four of the top awards of the evening, and came in with a record 16 nominations!
While the well-deserved drama One Battle After Another walked away with Best Picture, the real story of the 98th Oscars was how genre filmmaking crashed the party. Vampires. Giant blue aliens. Animated K-pop demon hunters. A Guillermo del Toro Frankenstein. And, a horror movie about a suburban aunt who might be the most terrifying villain in years. It was, in the best possible way, an absolutely amazing evening for us nerds.
Conan O’Brien returned to host the Oscars for the second year in a row, and he definitely delivered. It takes a certain fearless comedian to step back into that spotlight. Sheer bravery. He kicked off the evening with a pre-taped bit where he dressed as Weapons villain Aunt Gladys, complete with crazy angry kids chasing him into the theater. He then introduced himself as “the last human host of the Academy Awards,” joking that next year’s host would be a Waymo in a tux.
Sinners
Ryan Coogler’s vampire-horror-Blues-music masterpiece left with four major awards. This film made history with the first win for a female cinematographer, Autumn Durald Arkapaw, and earned much-celebrated Best Actor honors for Michael B. Jordan for his incredible portrayal of the brothers. Adding to that list was Ryan Coogler’s Best Original Screenplay win and Ludwig Göransson’s Best Original Score.
The full Sinners Scorecard:
- Best Actor — Michael B. Jordan
- Best Original Screenplay — Ryan Coogler
- Best Cinematography — Autumn Durald Arkapaw (history-making win)
- Best Original Score — Ludwig Göransson
Iconic moment when Sinners nominated song “I lied To You” took over the room.
Frankenstein: Del Toro’s Monster Gets Its Due
Guillermo del Toro has been making gorgeous, weird, heartfelt monster movies for decades, and the Academy rewarded this horror masterpiece with three wins for his Frankenstein. The film swept the craft categories in style:
- Best Costume Design — Kate Hawley
- Best Makeup and Hairstyling — Mike Hill, Jordan Samuel, and Cliona Furey
- Best Production Design — Tamara Deverell; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau
Avatar: Fire and Ash: Blue people return
James Cameron has expanded his Avatar universe. The man knows how to build a world and make it look absolutely stunning on an IMAX screen. Fire and Ash continued that tradition with a win for Best Visual Effects.
- Best Visual Effects — Joe Letteri, Richard Baneham, Eric Saindon, and Daniel Barrett
Weapons: Horror’s Quiet Triumph
Horror fans have spent years watching their favorite genre get snubbed, so the win for Weapons felt particularly sweet. Amy Madigan’s Aunt Gladys was the terrifying villain that Conan literally dressed as to open the show, and the film earned a major prize of Best Supporting Actress.
- Best Supporting Actress — Amy Madigan
The fact that Conan opened the entire Oscars broadcast essentially as a tribute to this character tells you everything you need to know about how deeply Aunt Gladys embedded herself in the cultural consciousness. She broke windows. She broke rules. She broke the Academy’s resistance to horror. Legend.
K-Pop Demon Hunters: Animation’s Big Night
And then there was KPop Demon Hunters, the animated film that nobody saw coming but everybody loved. It walked away with not one but two Oscars:
- Best Animated Feature
- Best Original Song — EJAE, Mark Sonnenblick, Joong Gyu Kwak, Yu Han Lee, Hee Dong Nam, Jeong Hoon Seon, and Teddy Park
Between Sinners’ four trophies, Frankenstein’s three craft wins, Weapons’ acting prize, Avatar’s visual effects crown, and K-Pop Demon Hunters’ animated double, genre filmmaking accounted for a remarkable chunk of last night’s gold statues. Horror, sci-fi, and animation are no longer the awkward cousins invited reluctantly to the awards table. They pulled up chairs and stayed for dessert!
The Academy still gave Best Picture to a somber drama about a washed-up revolutionary, because of course it did. But the night belonged to the monster movies, the vampire epics, the blue CGI worlds, and the K-pop demon slayers.
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