October 31: A Horror Queen Takes Over Studio 8H

The star of the year’s biggest horror hit makes her Saturday Night Live hosting debut on the scariest night of the year.

It’s hard to imagine a better match for Halloween night. Inde Navarrette, the 25-year-old star of Obsession, 2026’s highest-grossing horror movie, hosts Saturday Night Live for the first time tonight at 11:30 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. Singer-songwriter Gracie Abrams joins her as musical guest. It’s the show’s first new episode in three weeks.

From Scream Queen to Live From New York

Navarrette has had a fast rise. Born in Tucson, Arizona, and raised mostly in California, she first gained fans on The CW’s Superman & Lois before breaking out this year in Obsession, where she plays a woman who becomes terrifyingly fixated on a man after a magical wish makes her fall in love with him. The film’s success has made her one of the season’s most talked-about young actors, and her studio is already campaigning for her during awards season. She told Variety she feels like she “snuck in” and is keeping the episode’s surprises secret. She joined the cast and crew for the show’s traditional Tuesday kickoff dinner in New York this week.

Gracie Abrams returns to Studio 8H almost two years after her debut in December 2024, when she performed “That’s So True” and “I Love You, I’m Sorry” on an episode hosted by Chris Rock. She arrives this time with her third studio album, Daughter from Hell, released in July. Tonight’s show is the fourth episode of the show’s 52nd season and kicks off a run of three straight new episodes, with Druski and the Strokes on November 7 and John Mulaney and Phoebe Bridgers on November 14.

A vintage television studio stage decorated for Halloween with glowing jack-o’-lanterns and warm stage lights

For half a century, Halloween on SNL has been a tradition of costumes, chaos, and sketches people quote for years.

Saturday Night Live has made Halloween its own for decades, and its spooky-season sketches are some of the show’s most loved. The best-known example came in 2016, when Tom Hanks introduced the world to David S. Pumpkins, a baffling, suit-wearing character who became a pop culture favorite almost overnight. Navarrette inherits that tradition at a moment when horror is one of the most popular genres in film. Whether tonight produces the next classic is up to her and the cast, but on Halloween, a horror star hosting the show feels exactly right.