Yahoo Movies The 10 best horror movies of 2022
In lots of ways, 2022 was a terrifying 12 months for the film industry (would audiences come back? should they?), but horror proved once again to be a bloody good genre, both commercially and creatively. The reasons for that may be somewhat obvious, but simply put, this is a genre that values fresh surprises, executed on the cheap. From killer aliens to homicidal Santas, here are the 10 best terror tales of the year. Bonus: Only one of these titles derives from existing IP.
10. <i>Smile</i>
Starring Sosie Bacon as a psychiatrist tormented by a supernatural force after she suffers the death of a patient, Smile put a you-know-what on the faces of both horror fans and theaters owners as writer-director Parker Finn's film earned north of $200 million around the globe. Less happy? The pour souls tasked with clearing up the mountains of popcorn left on theater floors as the result of the movie's many effective jump scares.
9. <i>Speak No Evil</i>
Ahead of his film's release, Speak No Evil director Christian Tafdrup told EW that he had set out to make "the most disturbing film in Danish history." Mission accomplished! Morten Burian and Sidsel Siem Koch play a husband and wife who visit a family they met on vacation, and then make the error of staying out of politeness, even though their hosts are a little weird. Hilarity ensues, then ends, and then things get very bleak indeed.
8. <i>Scream</i>
Long-running horror franchises can turn into something of a shambles once the original creative team departs. The challenge faced by filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, collaborating with writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick, was the high quality maintained by the late Wes Craven, who directed all four previous films in the series. Wisely, the new team set about convincing the core legacy cast (Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette) to return with the promise of honoring Craven's memory while introducing new characters who really do seem capable of carrying the terror torch into more entries. The result makes one hopeful for both Scream 6 (out March 10) and the reportedly forthcoming reboot of the Escape from New York franchise from Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett's Radio Silence filmmaking collective.
7. <i>The Black Phone</i>
The folks who brought us 2012's chilling Sinister (actor Ethan Hawke, director Scott Derrickson, and screenwriter C. Robert Cargill) regrouped for this similarly unsettling tale of a child murderer. Based on a short story by Joe Hill, The Black Phone found Hawke instantly achieving horror-icon status as the Grabber, whose terrifying mask was designed by legendary makeup artist Tom Savini (veteran of the original Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th). "Tom just came back with something that was head and shoulders above everyone else," Derrickson told EW. "I thought we would get something more unique from someone younger. I was wrong."
6. <i>Christmas Bloody Christmas</i>
"What if Richard Linklater remade The Terminator?" isn't a question that would occur to many filmmakers, but writer-director Joe Begos' answer to that query is one of the year's most entertainingly mayhem-filled releases. Riley Dandy plays a horny small-town record store owner whose night out with Sam Delich's employee is violently interrupted after a robot Santa Claus goes berserk.
5. <i>X</i> / <i>Pearl</i>
Is it a cheat to include both of these movies as a single entry? Maybe. But director Ti West's two 2022 releases are so entangled it would seem strange to separate them. Starring an excellent Mia Goth in dual roles, X is a fun, '70s-set, bloodbath about a porn shoot on which the cast and crew are menaced by a pair of oldsters. The prequel, Pearl, which takes place in 1918, is the more interesting, serious, and better-by-a-smidge movie, with Goth once again fabulous as the younger version of her killer from X.
4. <i>Nope</i>
If Jordan Peele's third film after 2017's Get Out and 2019's Us seemed less cohesive than its predecessors, the director still delivered 2022 horror's greatest big-screen spectacle — and two of this year's best performances regardless of genre — with his story of siblings (Keke Palmer and Daniel Kaluuya) attempting to secure footage of a UFO. The flashback sequences involving the child-actor version of Steven Yeun's character are flat-out terrifying, though oddly semi-detached from the central narrative.
3. <i>Bodies Bodies Bodies</i>
Amandla Stenberg, Maria Bakalova, Pete Davidson, and a hilarious Rachel Sennott, among others, play zoomers whose weekend away at a remote mansion goes awry in spectacularly blood-drenched fashion. Dutch actress-turned-director Halina Reijn oversees matters in a manner which brilliantly accentuates the movie's comedic aspects while still somehow making you worry for her collection of fairly unlikeable characters.
2. <i>Barbarian</i>
In a world where trailers routinely spoil plot points that occur deep into a film's duration, Disney and 20th Century created a box office hit out of Barbarian by telling potential audiences next to nothing when it came to the movie's second and third acts. And how very grateful we should be for that. Among the cinematic treats of the year was watching this sleeper hit from the Whitest Kids U' Know sketch troupe member Zach Cregger with almost no idea what was going to happen. In the same spirit, we won't elaborate further, except to say that Justin Long is always welcome in any horror movie he chooses.
1. <i>The Menu</i>
Our favorite title of the year details an evening of increasingly nightmarish dining for wealthy guests at a remote tony restaurant overseen by Ralph Fiennes' celebrity chef. Directed by Mark Mylod (Succession) and co-starring Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo and Hong Chau, the movie skillfully mines comedy and tension from its set-up while simultaneously offering some one-percenter food for thought (though not enough to give anyone indigestion). But is it really a horror film or a horror-adjacent satirical thriller? On this matter we defer to Black Phone screenwriter and all-around fear fiend C. Robert Cargill who tweeted about this exact question, writing that The Menu "is a f---ing horror movie, full stop. I'm tired of folks trying to take the best horror away from the genre because they are embarrassed by it." So there.
Plus more we loved: Glorious, Watcher, Fresh, Prey, Orphan: First Kill, The Innocents, Mad God, Something in the Dirt, The Sadness, You Are Not My Mother, Bones and All, Resurrection, V/H/S 99, Master, A Banquet
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