The 15 best horror movies of 2022, ranked
It was a banner year for horror films, from Nope's extraterrestrial terror to Hellraiser's fresh take on hell to the insatiable cannibal hunger of Bones And All
Film Lists Nikyatu Jusu
Clockwork from bottom left: Pearl (Screenshot: A24); Nope (Photo: Universal Pictures); Prey (Screenshot: Hulu); Bodies Bodies Bodies (Screenshot: A24); Hellraiser (Photo: Hulu) Graphic: The A.V. Club
It’s been a fantastic year for horror cinema, with veteran filmmakers returning for fresh stories and up-and-coming directors and writers challenging audiences with frightening new visions. Not only did we see the return of Pinhead, Ghostface and the Predator, but we also were gifted with a haunting view of cannibalism, a stop-motion masterpiece, and not one but two films set in an entirely new horror universe. Of course, in a year full of numerous new scary stories it wasn’t easy to narrow down our list. But rest assured that the 15 films that follow (along with some bonus honorable mention titles) are the best of the best for 2022 in the eyes of The A.V. Club.
129 Comments
I still need to see Pearl as I loved X. I will say as much as I really think Nope is great, I’m not sure if Barbarian isn’t the best horror movie I’ve seen in 2022. Both Nope and Barbarian have a scene in the movie were you are scared to death for the people in it or you want to reach into the screen and scream at the hero to not be so stupid!Thanks for this list, will check out some of the movies on it I haven’t seen as of yet.
Barbarian is a lot like Malignant in that it throws you for a loop on what genre of horror it is. They start out like they are going to be supernatural thrillers and then become essentially batshit creature-features.
god Malignant was maybe my favorite viewing experience of the year
That’s a great comparison, as they both go off the fucking rails at about the same point (Barbarian maybe a hair sooner) but honestly while I laughed my ass off at that point in Malignant, it didn’t work for me in Barbarian. But yeah, they’re close to the same level of insanity (close, but Malignant is just so, SO fucking nuts that Barbarian gets props for almost getting there). Between the two I feel the opposite about the front half of each as well—Barbarian was a fantastic set-up, while I can barely remember anything that happened in the first 2/3 of Malignant.
Agree with the comparison but IMO Barbarian felt like less of a blatant attempt to create a franchise character. Much tighter runtime too.
I’m kinds surprised at the absence of Nope as well. I really enjoyed it, and there were some really striking shots that are just so well done.
X was cool, and Pearl is pretty good for a slow burn character study.
And I concur with Barbarian, what a cool movie, totally unexpected and lots of fun. Speak No Evil is the epitome of feel bad movie. Such a downer.
The absence of Nope? It was number 1.
lol so it was. I thought X and Pearl tied, and one was labelled 2 and the other 1. I should pay more attention.
“I’m kinds surprised at the absence of Nope as well.”
Nope is #1.
That was one that I respected for being ballsy, but will not ever watch again. Jesus such a downer.
Get Out was great, and Us was pretty good. But Nope was a no for me dawg.
Barbarian somehow managed to take everything I thought was going to happen and turn it on its side to send the movie into a whole new wild direction. I laughed, jumped and sometimes both at once. Add the top notch shot framing and Justin Long’s funniest performance in a long time (ever?) and this took the top horror spot for me this year.
Yeah, Barbarian is #1 in my book. I loved what a wild ride it was and her exploration of the basement was the most scared I’ve gotten watching a movie this year. Nope was well-crafted and its take on the monster was interesting, but idk, I just didn’t connect with it that much. Part of it may have been expecting more of horror movie than a mixture of sci-fi/action/horror/etc.
I didn’t like it nearly as much as you (the end just didn’t work for me) but I thoroughly enjoyed it up to a point, and didn’t hate it due to the ending like I have other films (looking at you High Tension). Every performance in that one was good, and for sure the direction was top notch.
It reminded me of Malignant but much MUCH better. The story was tighter and it didn’t feel like it was made by someone who just wants another franchise character.
I’m still not sure what exactly constitutes “folk” horror.
If you have access to Shudder or Kanopy via your local library, this was a great primer on the subject.
Outsiders stumble into weird old customs in isolated areas. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” (well, here, it’s just the reader “stumbling across” it) Wicker Man. Midsommar.
Huh….I know that video will give a lot of depth to what you’ve written here, but yeah that’s a pretty great sum up. I’d add The Witch to the category, though, and it doesn’t quite fit that definition.
Agreed, that’s about as good a definition as I can think of. The documentary is definitely worth watching, but it’s also over three hours long, so not exactly a succinct explanation.I think The Witch falls into another Folk Horror trope of old ways and new ways clashing with each other during social/societal shifts. There’s also the trope of youth overthrowing their authority figures, which is just another version of old vs. new.
Ah yes–Hellbender falls into that last one (watched it last night–honestly I’d seen it on too many ‘best of’ lists, I think, as I felt like it was good, but a bit over-rated).
I like it a lot but agree that there’s a certain arthouse breathlessness to the praise it gets. It IS good, but it has to be taken in the context of a lo-fi indie art collective production.
The critical aspect is that those weird old customs must be pagan-like rituals. If the customs are tied to Christianity, it’s gothic horror (e.g., “Children of the Corn”).
I’ve always taken it to mean old timey, isolated, usually based in a rural setting, and using a lot of conservative tropes. So movies like X, Pearl, or those cannibal teens on this list. I could also be completely wrong though.
It depends on the region, but broadly it involves rural communities that keep up pagan-like practices (e.g., nature worship, ritual sacrifices, etc.). “The Wicker Man” and “Hot Fuzz” are great examples of folk horror. “Children of the Corn” seems like folk horror, but because it deals with Christianity (however primitive), it’s Midwestern gothic instead.
I liked X but I loved Pearl. How was “Men” with Jessie Buckley not on this list tho?
Jesus Christ that came out in 2022? This has been a weird couple of years.
Men was Alex Garland veering too far to one end of the “thinking” vs “feeling” axis, but it was still better than We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair was the best film of 2022.
Because it was bad.
yeah amen- it started so strong and ended with a pile of “hey, I watched possession”
Yeah, I know a lot of people were not down with the ending. Which, fair, it was kind of too on the nose for my taste, but that first hour or so of Men is creepy as hell. Definitely better than Bodies Bodies Bodies, what a pile of garbage that movie was (I pirated it out of curiosity, at least I didn’t pay money for it).
Dude, Nope sucked balls. “So they’re still just trying to take a good picture of the UFO? Like they were an hour ago? That’s the highest stakes the movie’s going to have? What about the fuckin’ monkey rampage thing, is that ever going to mean anything? Nope? Just a random idea he threw in that has nothing to do with the UFO part? Great.”
Why are her nipples cock-eyed?
The new Hellraiser was… fine, I guess? There was a weightlessness and bloodlessness to it that was a weird choice. You want to feel Hellraiser… it needs to be visceral (in all senses of the word). This one was weirdly sanitized. I agree the updated mythos was a great choice, but wish they would have invested in the characters to tell that story and the effects to make the punches land.
I was mostly glad that the hooks didn’t seem to be a slight bit bigger than fishing hooks for once lol
Yeah one of my friends noticed its lack of “wetness”, mostly pertaining to the dry look of the open wounds on the Cenobites, and that made more sense to me. Also missing was someone completely skinless and slick with blood.I am really surprised they didn’t go deeper into what made “The Hellbound Heart” compelling, which was to me a firsthand view of what intense pleasures the Lament Configuration offered to those who solved its riddle. With the budget they had I thought they would at least plumb those visual depths, but I suppose that is still hard to translate from page to screen.
I personally hated the updated mythology. And I don’t think the characters served it at all. It was visually quite gorgeous and I think that director has a great handle on how to manipulate the discomfort of liminal spaces (his prior movies The Night House and The Ritual demonstrate this, too) but the writing was really bad.
I’m in the minority and recognize that I’m probably missing something, but Barbarian didn’t work for me in any way. I know you have to accept a level of stupidity in horror movie characters, but Barbarian was a bridge too far.
You’re not alone. It got SUCH hype I went into it expecting to be at least entertained. I was mostly annoyed.
I’m very happy with X and Pearl at the top, but I loathed Barbarian. I don’t need every movie to be totally realistic, but there was way too much in Barbarian that I thought was just our main character being an absolute idiot, and I don’t personally think we can allow our horror protagonists to be that stupid anymore. I was furious with every single choice she made, and it all felt more gross than scary
I…kinda agree. I LOVED Barbarian, but it also had some of the stupidest decision-making I’ve seen in a horror movie (and there’s a lot of stupid decision-making in horror movies). Every trope you could think of was there – even *spoiler* Justin Long’s character fumbling with (and dropping) the gun at the end (or the police who would sooner respond to a shooting rather than a woman clearly stating she’d been kidnapped). Don’t even get me started on Tessa’s character going back INTO the tunnel. Jesus.
Despite some significant flaws, though, I still LOVED it. The pacing was incredible. The lighting/cinematography was great (those dimly lit tunnel scenes were quintessential horror). There was no fat in the screenplay. And that first jump scare was one of my favorites in recent memory.
BARBARIAN’s brilliance is that it shows how men consistently fail to listen to women, despite women going out of their way to warn them, help them, look to them for protection, and give them the benefit of the doubt. Young women especially operate under this societal conditioning — young people just don’t have the emotional distance and life experience to examine every decision in the context of society. That’s why the protagonist had to be in her early 20s. No woman over 35 would make the same decisions that she made. It would have been a very short movie that ended as soon as the dude opened the door.And police would absolutely prefer to respond to a gunshot instead of a woman claiming she’d been kidnapped. For that matter, they don’t care to listen to men claiming to have been kidnapped, either (e.g., the cases of Mark Latunski and Jeffrey Dahmer).
What isn’t brilliant is you lumping men into a group and calling them inept and unable to accept but seemingly unable to exist without the advice of women (despite women clamoring to help them…according to you). Then you followed that up with derisive comments about the emotional maturity and decision-making ability of young people and set an arbitrary line of 35 years of age for an age of sensibility. THEN you followed that up with a claim that police don’t take threats of domestic violence and kidnapping seriously.In relationship to the movie: Tess needed to go in because if she didn’t the plot dies. The police needed to not respond because if they do the plot ends. The male characters needed to not listen because if they did listen the plot ends. For what it is worth the writing beats us over the head with the fact that AJ is an egomaniacal sociopath which explains his self-centered behaviors more than the fact that he is also a man. That character could just have easily been an egomaniacal sociopathic woman who shows up to check her house and then attempts to sacrifice the other people to save herself. In the future it’s probably best to not negatively generalize about gender and age…those things have a way of showing back up in your life later (like on job interviews).
Wow, someone got triggered, huh?
Thanks for the laugh! But in the future it’s probably best not to lose your mind over an internet comment.
“What isn’t brilliant is you lumping men into a group and calling them inept and unable to accept but seemingly unable to exist without the advice of women”
Oh, fuck off you sad little man. Don’t you have a video of Jordan Peterson to wank to?
I was very disappointed in Barbarian, completely for the reason you say. It is an old trope that characters do things that make no sense. But, in Barbarian, this was taken to an extreme, to the point that I found it annoying.
It reminded me of As Above So Below, but not done as well, since AASB at least seemed to contain a better, simple plot to keep it moving. Even the preview started out interesting and then started to annoy me with what looks like stupid decisions. I agree that horror protagonists can’t be completely stupid, unless the goal is horror-comedy.
AASB is an underrated gem. It’s like an adventure movie that turns super dark. And I love that it uses some faux doc/”found footage” techniques.
I also don’t understand for the life of me why they chose THAT particular antagonist/monster. There was no thematic connection to the story AT ALL. So you’re gonna take a story that *seems* to be about gentrification or how modern gender relations border on horror stories but really it’s a fucking Hills Have Eyes inbred mutant motherhood gag? WTF? That’s not an interesting plot twist or turn, that’s an unmotivated bunch of bullshit. It made me really angry, obviously.
We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is one of the more overrated movies I’ve seen in a while. The same time would be better spent watching amateur youtube videos.Bones and All really seems like it should have ended earlier, shortly after Chloe Sevigne’s scene.Nope was pretty good, but not as good as X (which was also better than Pearl).
I was so excited to see World’s Fair but it was the most let down I’ve been in a while.
Hell yeah, NOPE is the best
It is so goddam original and so goddam FUN
The gradual transformation from horror movie to action western is a triumph.
Glad Hellbender got a mention, that was pretty good. If you like Hellbender, watch “The Deeper You Dig,” it features a lot of the same people.
Why does the link for A Wounded Fawn go to a generic info page rather than an AVC review?
*Sees Prey in the thumbnail* How is Prey a horror movie?
Anything can be a horror movie with the right mindset, my dude.To a WWII Normandy Veteran, the film Saving Private Ryan is like a horror movie. So given that logic, Prey is a horror movie if you’re a French-Canadian fur trapper or a hungry bear down by the river.
“Prey is a horror movie if you’re a French-Canadian fur trapper or a hungry bear down by the river.”
Or if you’re not entirely comfortable with BEING HUNTED BY ALIENS FROM OUTER SPACE.
Jesus, how fucking thick are people?
Closer to sci-fi imo.
It’s a monster movie. That tends to fall under horror.
How is it not?
Pearl was a lot better than X, no tie there. Mia Goth was brilliant in Pearl. I would have Pearl 1st, then Nope and X.
Should one watch Pearl or X first, if one intends to watch both? Or maybe I should ask which one to watch first if watching both is dependent on the quality of the first?I don’t know what I’m asking, just give me an order, I need instructions!
I watched X first but I would recommend watching Pearl first. I think you will appreciate X more. After seeing Pearl I rewatched X & liked it better.
All right thank you, I’m watchin’ Pearl first! (Right now in fact)
So…what did you think of Pearl?
I liked it a lot! Mia Goth was tremendous. And I don’t think I would’ve liked X as much had I not seen Pearl first.
So… I’ve seen X. I really liked it, although I didn’t think it transcended anything the way some others have with breathless praise. But I’ve been hesitant to see Pearl because… well, don’t we already know what’s gonna happen? Like maybe not the specific details, but isn’t it a foregone conclusion? I say that having loved the Hannibal TV show and knowing where *that* was going to go, too. But the Hannibal TV show was written and directed by a bunch of people who weren’t Demme or Ratner or Scott. Pearl is written and directed by Goth and West. Like X was. So… I dunno. Do I really need to see Pearl? What does it add to my appreciation of X? You say it does, but how?
I saw X first, and then saw Pearl when it was released….and immediately watched X again. Pearl makes X better and it was very good to begin with. Mia Goth is good in X, but she is transcendent in Pearl. I know the Academy tends to ignore horror films, but I fully believe she deserves a nomination for her work in Pearl.
I’ve seen neither yet, but nearly every comment I’ve read on those 2 are the same as what you’ve gotten so far. X is a good movie on its own, but Pearl is great and makes X better. I plan on watching Pearl first and then watching X.
“I plan on watching Pearl first and then watching X.”
Why would you watch a sequel before the first film? Pearl EXISTS to complement X.
“Should one watch Pearl or X first, if one intends to watch both?”
X came out first. Watch it first.
Why would you even CONSIDER the other way?
I get that the slideshow admits as much, but Bodies Bodies Bodies isn’t even horror-adjacent. Seems like “it’s a horror movie” is the go-to way to market certain lower-budget fare these days, I guess because mid-budget films are increasingly dying off and being labeled indie gives viewers an excessively twee idea about the contents.
It was definitely marketed as a horror movie. I honestly didn’t realize it wasn’t until the Lee Pace scene (and then actually realized what might be going on). Horror can be a hard genre to pin down. Suspense feels like a better description of that one.
I strongly disagree. The tense hurricane setting, the group of wild and sexy young adults, the increasingly grisly violence. All pretty solid staples of horror. I mean, did we even watch the same movie? C’mon.
I get that the slideshow admits as much, but Bodies Bodies Bodies isn’t even horror-adjacent. It’s a movie about oversexed teenagers in an isolated location dying one by one. That makes it some kind of slasher, even though it parodies the genre (like Scream), the killer does not run around in a mask (like the first Friday the 13th), and the suspense set-up is mostly a pretext for social satire (like the recent remake of Black Christmas). I suspect some viewers will want to describe this movie as a whodunit or a black comedy, but slashers often double as whodunits and comedies. Most of the features that would bump this movie outside of the horror genre are shared with movies that fit soundly inside of it. The best objection is that it’s not scary…but I was pretty terrified at the prospect that real teenagers act like these characters.
My Bones and All felt something was missing from this list… Smile doesn’t even get an honorable mention?
Agreed—definitely worthy of a mention at least. It lost it’s way a bit towards the end, but great set up and dread-building all the way through.
Eh, Smile felt really really recycled to me. It wasn’t bad, but definitely not the best I watched this year.
Oh sure, it was The Ring all over again, but an original enough take that it deserved an honorable mention.
Smile was better than at least half of these
It’s Jane Schoenbrun
REALLY stretching the definition of “horror movie” with some of the selections on this list, and the overall tendency toward miserablism and the purely psychological—looking at you, Resurrection and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair—is disappointing. Given all that, the absence of Chloe Okuno’s Watcher, which fits right in with these other selections (and is better than several of them) is utterly mystifying.
Man Terrifer 2 was a blast. Is it a cheap low budget gore fest, yes, is the story good or great, nope. And that’s perfectly fine, I think there is a beauty in a movie or killer, in this case Art the Clown, who just kills for NO reason and enjoys the hell out of it. I don’t need a reason or history for why they are doing the things they are, can’t it just be because they are murder machines. Freddy, Jason, Michael Meyers, all ended up with backstories some earlier than other’s but I don’t think it makes them any better for it.
I got the distinct feeling that the Terrifier series is heading in that direction, though, as they’ve really started laying groundwork for backstory. Though they probably figure no one is looking at the screen long enough to really follow it.
True, though I certainly didn’t turn away I love me some gore lol. But yes they are leaning into a back story, of sorts. But they are going the same route as so many other slashers and just leaning into the supernatural, which is fine. Most of them do it at some point. Freddy, child killed burned alive is “powered” by 3 umm dream demons or something. Jason, drowned as a child comes back as a full grown man, sure. But the no rhyme or reason behind Art going on a killing spree was fun, he’s just a murder clown because he enjoys being a murder clown. Reminds me in a way of the bad guy in The Collector movies. It’s just some guy who like to kill and torture people, though you do get a hint at who he is at the end of the second movie. Which also has one of my favorite kills at the opening, he bascially drops a giant reel mower into a crowd of kids at a rave/dance party.
Gore isn’t my thing so I’ve only seen pictures and gifs, but I have to admire the marketing campaign for T2. William Castle would’ve appreciated it.
That it got a sequel at all was amazing at all lol. I enjoyed the first one as well, and like I said having essentially no story I think helped the first movie. I am a self professed Horrorslut and Gorehound, so I will watch just about anything horror related, it’s why I love october and AMC Fear Fest. I was joking with a buddy, since I sleep with my tv on, I would leave it on AMC and sleep like a baby to the screams of terror in the background LOL.
SIGHHHHHHLike…. fine. Whatever. But then why’s he a fucking mime/clown? “He doesn’t have to have a reason to kill.” FINE. I don’t inherently disagree. I like The Strangers. I like The Collector. But dressing up as a fucking mime or clown is a CHOICE. And coulrophobia is the most fucking tired, worn-out, brutally BORING choice a horror movie can make in this day and age. The It miniseries was the last time clown horror made a goddam lick of sense.I fucking hated Terrifier. I’ll get around to watching Terrifier 2 but I’m pretty sure it’s gonna annoy me just as much as the first one did.(Apologies. Clown horror really makes me mad. And I think Terrifier is really, REALLY lazy clown horror.)
lol fair enough, though I don’t know how often clown horror is really used. I mean It, and Killer Clowns from Outspace sure and maybe a couple of others. Honestly what I liked was the senselessness of it all. Like there is no rhyme or reason WHY he is going around killing people, he just does it because it’s “fun” which I am down for. When it comes to horror in general I don’t care about the story or the motiviation I just want random acts of senseless violence. And Terrifer and Terrifer 2 scratched that itch. But to each their own, we all like, or dislike, what we do.
Okay, hear me out. Not looking to yuck your yum but I DO think there’s room for reasonable critique and reconsideration. I *get* appreciation for the killing, particularly the more visually complex gore FX kills. And sure, there’s an interesting sadism to those. But then partway through he just uses a gun and shoots people. That’s not sadistic or personal or fun like the other kills. It’s inconsistent. And I think it belies the idea that Art “likes” killing. As soon as the gun shows up it’s not fun, it’s just a task to complete. I don’t know if that’s bad writing or maybe the production budget required some “simpler” kills or what. But it’s all the more reason I don’t think it works. Specifically the first one. I have yet to try the second.
Fair enough, as I have said before we all like what we like. I don’t remember there being a gun in the second one though. Different strokes and what not. All said I am not super picky when it comes to horror, I will watch just about anything lol but the gore aspect was a big thing when it comes to Terrifer. Some people don’t like that, my buddy certainly doesn’t. I am just all in on more horror lol
lol the more of your comments I read about Terrifier I’m very worried about you and what you might be capable of…and somehow want to be your best friend.
HAHA considering my taste in movies and music I am sure many people from the outside looking in might think I am a secret serial killer lol. What can I say I like the dark, scary and violent side of things. I was joking with someone when they asked what kind of music I listen to, my response, the kind of stuff that scares little kids and old people lol. Like violent movies, or angry music are calming if I am having a bad day or in a bad mood a little deathcore or metal soothes the soul lol.
We’ll have to agree to disagree on deathcore, but I’m down with the rest.
LOL my musical tastes certainly aren’t for everyone. And funny enough I have a VERY wide musical range. Like pretty much anything but country and I can be down haha.
Has anyone seen Skinamarink yet? I want to, but uhh I’m kind of scared.
It’s one of those movies I could appreciate but did not really enjoy watching at all. Was completely bored. It’s quite literally two hours of grainy video snippets of a house with the occassional voice over and zero plot. It’s definitely atmospheric, unique and experimental, and meant to elicit emotion through its imagery and sound, but I honestly couldn’t recommend it as it’s so, so drawn out. That said, I think for a select few it will REALLY work, and you can watch the director’s YouTube movie “Heck’ to see if you’re one of those people, as it’s exactly that but four times longer.
interesting! thanks for sharing.
Is it more or less inscrutable than Beyond the Black Rainbow?(I ultimately admire and appreciate BtBR but hoo boy did it take me two or three sittings to finish. It is a patience tester.)
I just watched Heck on your advice and… boy. I don’t know. I really like the approach but the complete lack of coherent story bugged the ever-loving shit out of me. I’ve read a few reviews of Skinamarink and it *sounds* like there’s more of a story there than Heck, which I could never quite grasp. (There’s a kid in a house where the lights are broken and his mom is missing? And he’s walking around with a flashlight in hopes of… um… I dunno.)
This list is a real testament to the fact horror is a genre that really needs to be seen with an audience in cinemas.
I watched X and Barbarian at home alone and though X was a pale shadow of the films it was riffing on. Barbarian works for the first half and then it just played like a Split like unofficial stealth sequel to the Shinning where we see what the lady in the bath got up to if she went home after her stay in the Overlook.
But I saw Bones & All in a cinema and it landed from the first from the first bite of finger food to heart breaking final feast.
I watched both of those at home too and had a great time.
Funny as that was my exact first mental image as well while watching Barbarian. Couldn’t disagree more about X, though, as saw it at home and loved it (though I liked Pearl more, and didn’t love X until after seeing Pearl).
I saw Barbarian in the theater and there were maybe 6 other people and it was so much better than watching it alone. Getting to laugh and scream along with a small audience was the way to go for me.
Damn, no mention of ‘You Wont Be Alone’. As close to horror as some other films here, but much higher quality than a few of ‘em. It’s like if Terrence Malick directed The VVitch.
Speak No Evil was SO effective as to what it was trying to achieve that I never want to watch it again, despite recommending it to others so they can experience it. It was both my favorite and least favorite horror movie of the year.For an under-the-radar horror gem from this year, check out Deadstream on Shudder if you’re someone who likes Evil Dead 2 style of horror.
Yep–respect the hell out of it for getting under my skin as much as it did, but I don’t think I can ever revisit that one. So fucking bleak.
I haven’t seen PEARL yet, but I loved X and I really loved BARBARIAN. I also loved PREY, but I just wouldn’t call that horror.
Nope.
I LOVED The Barbarian but I didn’t care at all for NOPE. I wanted to be scared and disturbed but NOPE did not deliver those qualities for me. A shout out to Smile which was great.
Okay, maybe COVID is screwing with my brain, but didn’t The Black Phone come out this year? I distinctly remember going to see a movie with that title. A damn fine horror movie, so I naturally assumed it would end up on this ‘Best Horror Movies of 2022′ list. Nothing. Not even an honorable mention.Maybe it’s just me. Still, this is why people need to mask the hell up.
Yeah, that and Smile were overlooked (as far as fairly prominent films go).
Prey is sci fi, or at least, horror-sci-fi like Alien or The Thing. Nope, which was by FAR the best thing I saw all year, is just straight up sci fi. It’s bizarre to me that people keep trying to stuff it into the horror genre. I get the line is blurry quite often, but not here. Is it the tv show parts that are making people think this or is Jordan Peele just associated with horror now no matter what he actually puts out? It’s about aliens and the observation and application of animal behavior-that’s science, y’all.
“I get the line is blurry quite often, but not here.”
So it’s NOT horror, even though the line is blurry, but it IS sci-fi despite there being NO science fiction in it?
On a different note, I would say that the first half of A WOUNDED FAWN is excellent stuff. That it gets up its own ass in the second half is forgivable…I get what they were going for. But man, that first half was so good.
To be honest, there are a number of films on this list I haven’t seen as of yet. I REALLY want to see Nanny, but it hasn’t opened in theaters anywhere in my area yet. I’m on the fence about Bones and All (I get the “strange beauty plus horror” appeal, but it seems a little too gross even for this hard-core horror fan), and I’ve also been on the fence about the Hellraiser remake, which I could watch on Netflix. I’m a huge fan of both the movie franchise and Clive Barker’s novella The Hellbound Heart, but horror remakes are hit or (sometimes way) miss. I agree with Nope being on the list, though (molten hot take alert) I don’t think it’s the very best horror film of the year, and I loved, loved, loved X and Pearl. I enjoyed Barbarian, too, and Bodies, Bodies, Bodies. My biggest issue with this list is its omission of Orphan, First Kill — which was…perfection. In every way. Dark humor. Pure darkness. A virtuouso performance (as usual) by the most brilliant (and often unsung) Gen Z actress, Isabelle Fuhrman. Seriously, not even no. 15? The scene with her rocking out to “Maniac” alone is worth the price of admission.
I think the new Hellraiser is a Hulu production. Also, if you like the Barker mythology you will be disappointed in the new movie. Those are NOT our Cenobites. I know Barker was pleased by it, but Barker is sometimes as bad as King at hyping projects based on his IP.
Also, yep, another flaming-hot take, I understand why it’s nowhere near a top horror films of 2022 list (it’s polarizing, yep, alienating/infuriating even to a lot of Halloween franchise fans), but I really, really liked Halloween Ends. Michael Myers in top form plus a major romance subplot for the appealing, edgy third-generation Final Girl (another brilliant performance by Andi Matichak)? IMHO, WTF’s not to like?
Speak No Evil is a fantastic film. Its one of those movies that slowly gets under your skin and by the end you are losing it. A really great true to life horror film. I hated X, easily the worst on this list for me. I also thought Bones and All was a complete waste.I loved Nope. The scenes with the chimpanzee is truly great horror. Are you kidding with the new Hellraiser? Its trash. And stop with the Bodies Bodies Bodies bullshit. This site has been on that movie’s jock since it came out. Its not a horror movie. Its a comedy and a bad one at that.
STRONG disagree with some of these entries but pleasantly surprised to see Hellbender on the list. I have issues with hyphenates in the film industry so part of me rankles at the Adams group. BUT Hellbender is undeniably interesting and really good lo-fi indie horror filmmaking. Dislike the artsty fartsy family film collective auteur blah but can’t fault their results.
“I have issues with hyphenates in the film industry so part of me rankles at the Adams group.”
Jesus, get over yourself, loser.
Murder Death Koreatown is on my list. It is definitely not for everyone and admittedly not a 2022 movie (it’s 2020/2021 depending on how you were able to see it), but I only just got to see it this year so it’s a 2022 movie for me! Anyone who hates found footage will have no patience for it. Anyone who gets annoyed by supernatural touches in otherwise straightforward narratives will have no patience for it. (And depending on the version you saw, you might not even have SEEN the supernatural touches.) But for me? Yum… It’s only enhanced for me by all the weird dumb IRL behind the scenes stuff. (It was delivered anonymously, without any credits, to a found footage horror festival and nobody has come forward to claim credit.)It’s one of those movies that I don’t expect anyone else to like and that’s totally okay and understandable.
Thanks for not putting Violent Night on the list, way too many people calling it a horror movie.
Nanny, nanny, nanny!
No Terrifier 2? No Smile? Really????