Maybe it’s the pandemic, or maybe the selection has been really good lately, but the horror is so hot right now. From blockbusters like Jordan Peele Nope to surprise stunners like Smile and Terrifying 2, the small genre that could have once again outperformed at the box office. This year, however, it looks like the trend has intensified even further. Ti West arose the existence of two secrets X sequels on us (the first of which has already debuted), and we have a new David Cronenberg movie on top of all that? 2022 might just be the year horror went from being a surprisingly popular weirdo at school to stealing the prom queen’s crown.
Nope and Cronenberg Future Crimes were both expected hits for this year, and both found their directors at the top of their game; in the first, Jordan Peele embraces his inner Steven Spielberg, and the second is both Cronenberg’s first film in eight years and an elegiac return to form. Both look set to stand the test of time (especially if Gordy has something to say about it), but even more rewarding were the luscious surprises.
Although James Wan made his debut clever last fall, and even though it technically flopped at the box office, the film, in retrospect, set the tone for our horror year to come. Considering its director, clever was never going to be an underdog. But the shameless silliness of its final act – which would be criminal to mess up but involves a secret evil twin and a hugely hilarious fight scene – was obviously too much for some people to bear. And yet, look at what dominated the conversation this year: films like Barbaric, a delightfully absurd AirBnb horror that ends in one of the most shameless needle drops of the century. whatever you think by Alex Garland Men, its breathtaking ending will be etched in your mind. We have also Orphan: first murder, a genuinely banana film that dares to ask, “Can a 30-year-old woman credibly impersonate her child?” (The answer is “definitely not,” but the results are too entertaining to deny.)
Yes, some of the entries this year were a bit more basic. Scream didn’t exactly reinvent the wheel – although he ushered in the era of Jenna Ortega with a magnificent performance—and The black phone was mostly a retread of tropes we’ve all seen in one Stephen King adaptation or another. (We’re just not going to talk about the embarrassment that was Halloween ends.) And some projects, as ambitious as they may have been, fell flat on their stomachs, like They they, which, as The Daily Beast’s horror aficionado Coleman Spilde noted on its release, managed to land the worst stage of the year with a pink song.
Yet for each of them there was a creative marvel like We’re all going to the world’s fair, a coming-of-age horror based on a haunting viral video challenge. It captures, perhaps better than any film before it, the unmoored isolation one can feel living so deeply online. Where to take crazy god— an experimental and technical marvel produced entirely in stop-motion. (For kids, stop-motion genius Henry Selick also delivered Wendell and savage.)
Film festivals are also full of a wide range of horrifying options. At Sundance, At Goran Stolveski’s You won’t be alone—a sensitive and bloody fable about a witch snatching the body – was among the most poetic entries. At the other end of the spectrum, there was Fresh, a heavily stylized cannibalistic horror starring Sebastian Stan. Both psychological thriller and horror, Resurrection– starring Rebecca Hall – is a traumatic tale of the aftermath of emotional abuse. And Hatching, another Sundance pick, Hanna Bergholm’s gorgeous and gruesome psychological horror, distills the bile of teenage fury into a perfectly executed creature feature. Carlota Pereda made the brutality of bullying viscerally undeniable in porcine, and with Observerfrom director Chloe Okuno, star Maika Monroe has cemented her reputation as one of the most prominent scream queens of this generation.
And came South by Southwest, where horror entries like Ti West’s X and Halina Reijn Body Body Body seemed to dominate (or at least came in second after the stun Everything everywhere all at once). And let’s not forget Luca Guadagnino’s cannibalistic romance, Bones and all, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
More exciting than the range of options, however, was seeing which of these films actually took off. In many cases, it’s the smaller productions that have generated the most conversation – films like Smile, a low-budget production that seemed to come out of nowhere and became one of highest grossing horror movies. Terrifying 2, pulled on a micro budget of $250,000, reported over $12 million worldwide. And Xwhich came preloaded with two planned sequels, managed to stay in the conversation seemingly in perpetuity, thanks in part to its ambitious sequel, pearl—shot simultaneously with the original.
With M3GAN on the horizon, and fresh on the heels of a instantly viral trailer (and apparently already sparking sequel conversations at Universal), it looks like 2023 might have us all screaming.
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