Last Updated on October 29, 2025 by Angel Melanson
Another FANGORIA Chainsaw Awards show is in the books (now streaming on YouTube)! It’s always a strange feeling to spend so much time on a single specific thing, and then finally put it to bed. But alas, the show belongs to all of you now, and we sure hope you enjoyed it. (Actually, it belongs to you so much that you can now watch the full show for free on YouTube!) It’s always exciting to invite the best horror makers of the year in for a celebration of their work, as chosen by you all. Keeping so many secrets and surprises for months until we are bursting at the seams means by awards night we are all about ready to explode, and being able to finally announce all of the winners is a much welcome release and celebration.
We’re taking you behind the scenes for a little on-set action with some of your favorite horror icons. We shot this year’s Chainsaw Awards across three days. Two days in the studio with the whole gang, hosts, presenters, and winners. Plus one more day on a spaceship with a skeleton crew, (yes, we really went to space for this, can you believe it?).
The first two days in the studio always feel like a wonderful reunion. The Fango team is spread out across multiple states, covering the country from coast to coast. When chunks of us get to come together for events like this, it’s always a good time. Add to that the horror icons we are lucky enough to call friends, whom we often only see for special events, and it’s almost like coming back to summer camp.
This year, we also had the Letterboxd team in the studio, grabbing interviews with incoming talent, chatting about favorite underseen horror movies that deserve more love and attention.
It got a bit gooey this year (we are in space, after all). The hardest part about this scene was going with the flow of the goop while also trying to keep my clothes completely goop-free! We shot this before the intro, and it certainly wouldn't have made sense for me to start off covered in goop. Luckily, our resident mad scientist, Ben Baur, was also a mad genius when it came to strategically applying the green goo.
You saw the show, so you are completely aware of how fantastically Barbara Crampton and Josh Ruben riff off one another. Let me tell you, one of the biggest challenges of the whole shoot IMHO was trying to stay silent and stifle my laughter as they kept coming up with funny bits at a breakneck pace. It was such a treat to watch two absolute pros doing what they do best, bringing Michael Varrati's script to life.
Fango EIC Phil Nobile Jr. has pointed this out on more than one occasion, but it bears repeating — owners Abhi Goel and Tara Ansley are on board to let all of us do some pretty wonderfully weird shit, and we're all pretty damn grateful for that.
On our third (and final) day of shooting, we piled into a spaceship cockpit for the opening segment. We were shooting in the dead of summer, and it certainly felt every bit of that, but our fearless crew braved the elements, and I had so much fun pretending to gaze out into the vastness of space and outrun a killer.
This was my view from space in case you were wondering what it looks like up here. Sorry and thank you to our editor, Erick Lorinc, for dealing with my teal hair against a green screen! There were about two million buttons in the cockpit, and Danny and I pressed at least half of them.
You can watch the full show for free, now streaming on YouTube.
None of this would be possible without you, the FANGORIA readers/the best damn fans in horror, and our incredible sponsors. Thank you for joining us on this wild adventure. Until next year…
For more BTS goodies, check out Peaches Christ taking you through the Chainsaws set.
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