The Ten Best Horror Films Of 2022
From sublime serial killer thrillers to body shaming bloodletting and all the madness in between here are the ten genre delights that floated my horror boat on the choppy seas of 2022.
10.
PIGGY
Carlota Pereda’s punishingly personal feature debut revolves around a Spanish teenager caught in the headlights of a hulking psychopath.
Shooting a movie that deals with disturbing real-life issues through the filthy filter of horror will always risk veering into exploitation territory. Thankfully, Pereda‘s nasty microcosm of small-minded shithousery is intelligent and honest enough to keep it wholly cathartic.
Yes, the film is hard to digest with long sections of sustained hectoring and explosive pockets of practical gore. Certainly, the camera lingers on psychological misery and physical discomfort.
However, the societal questions it poses have a substance and vitality that prevent it from becoming an exercise in soulless horror bingo and gratuitous rubbernecking. There is an organic rectitude in play here that gives tangible life to a relatable character who flourishes outside the airbrushed parameters of the traditional final girl.
Uncompromising, incendiary, and creatively cruel Piggy is a fearless callback to a time when independent horror flicks addressed the social elephants in the room by ripping their fucking tusks off.
Where to watch it – iTunes
9.
SPEAK NO EVIL
A lost toy rabbit becomes the catalyst for a meeting between a pair of Dutch and Danish families on an idyllic Tuscan break. Back home in Denmark Bjørn, Louise, and their little daughter Agnes receive a postcard from their new friends Patrick, Karen, and their young son Abel inviting them to visit for a weekend at their Netherlands home. What could possibly go wrong?
Director Christian Tafdrup set out to channel the sinister nihilism of Trier and Haneke into a realist social drama and sure enough, the results are as fucked up as you might expect. He also made a conscious decision with his co-scriptwriting brother Mads to go fully dark and make the viewer feel as uncomfortable as humanly possible. Again, the results are predictably nasty in this beautifully made, but thoroughly depressing and emotionally ugly arthouse flick.
It is not just the debasing and graphic nature of the denouement that draws bile to the throat and challenges even the legendary Plac zabaw for shock tactics. It’s the insidious realisations of the true agenda of Patrick and Karen that will be the virus in your movie memory bank.Â
Fans of slow-burn feel-bad flicks will need to look no further than Speak No Evil. A beautifully barren piece of high-concept horror with a conclusion that makes The Mist look like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Where to watch it –SHUDDER
8.
AMAZING ELISA
Elisa is an intelligent and articulate 12-year-old who has retreated into a world of comic book superheroes after the accidental death of her mother. So much so that she has vivid delusions that she possesses powers of her own such as impunity to blades and mega-strength. This in turn has emboldened a false sense of security within Elisa that leaves her wide open to harm at the hands of others and even more troublingly herself.
Sadrac Gonzalez-Perellon‘s stark and clinical direction gives Amazing Elisa the air of a classic fairy tale that has been scrubbed and disinfected of all whimsy, leaving just the bleached bones of the spiteful skeleton these stories often cling to. The result is a discombobulated and deconstructed superhero origin story blended with a blackly comedic societal horror show that never allows the audience access to apathy or indeed their bearings.
There is much to unpack and enjoy in Amazing Elisa but that would involve spoilers and it’s an experience better savoured raw and in the moment. Suffice it to say, there are some developments you will see coming and a couple you certainly won’t.
It is not, nor is it trying to be, an antidote to the incessant cultural carpet bombing of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What it does, with style and grown-up panache, is channel the same escapist ethos through the revenge-clouded eyes of a mentally compromised young girl.
Where to watch it – To be released by Filmax
7.
THE PRICE WE PAY
A crime turned sour leaves a gang of robbers and their resilient hostage at the mercy of a ruthless family with a truly twisted take on altruism.
The hugely talented Ryuhei Kitamura unleashes another gorefest that sits comfortably alongside his superb The Midnight Meat Train. It was a pleasure to catch such a linear and uncomplicated horror picture that knows exactly what it wants to be.
Featuring the most outrageously over-the-top screen death of the year it is a feast for old-school genre fans. The stupendously over-hyped Barbarian take note, now that is how to end your horror flick with a bang instead of a pathetic whimper.
Where to watch it – Streaming on Amazon Video and Apple iTunes from Jan 13th, 2023
6.
DISAPPEARÂ COMPLETELY
Ambulance-chasing press photographer Santiago has dreams of his ghoulish work being exhibited in galleries rather than plastered on the front pages of Nota Roja (Red note) newspapers. However, his morally dubious methods of bribing the police and breaking into crime scenes attract the attention of a powerful and evil adversary.
As Santiago begins to quite literally take leave of his senses he becomes swept up in a frantic race against time to prevent himself from slipping into a witchcraft-induced pseudocoma. He must face dark forces and make ethically obscene choices if he is to ward off the spectre of lifelong darkness.
The film features an astonishing sound design mixed beautifully by Jaime Baksht and Michelle Couttolenc. It is no coincidence that this pair also worked together on the stupendous Sound of Metal and indeed became Oscar winners in the process.
Here their talents are harnessed in conjunction with some truly brave cinematography to unleash a climax of immense power steeped in gloriously simplistic originality. You won’t have seen anything quite like it before and you will wonder why.
Disappear Completely constitutes a unique vision of elitist devil dealing and the morbid fascination with death that frequently permeates life. Carefully crafted and impeccably acted, it possesses a spine of spirited creativity that places it among the most innovative genre releases of the year.
Where to watch it – Coming Soon
5.
HOLYÂ SPIDER
Alli Abbasi’s audacious horror thriller is set in early-2000s Iran where a self-appointed religious avenger is cleansing the streets of sex workers. A fearless female journalist risks her life and freedom to bring him to justice.
No horror film this year dealt with real-world issues with such unfussy panache. Slated for oversimplifying complex problems in some quarters, it will please horror fans who don’t want to be smashed in the face with a moral compass.
The film’s violence is seldom over the top and is more powerful for that. However, it is a challenging watch as its realist vibe lays bare the evil suppression some women face on a constant basis. Surprisingly subtle at times and brutally honest at others it is a film of immense vitality and relevance.
Beautifully acted and shot Holy Spider knows it is skating on thin theological ice but its refusal to demonise an entire faith and willingness to humanise its deeply troubled murderer makes for a thrilling and edgy watch.
Whilst never forgetting to be a horror movie it is a film that suggests that the real terror lies at the hands of misogyny apologists and those who stand to make gains in the losses of female freedom.
Where to watch it – Apple TV
4.
MEGALOMANIAC
The knives and hammers are out in this grueling tar pit of original sin as we follow the imagined offspring of the real-life serial killer the Mons Butcher.
Megalomaniac is a serious contender for the most depressing movie experience of the year. Like Katrin Gebbe’s near-unbearable Nothing Bad Can Happen before it, Megalomaniac aims to serve up scabby social commentary and a front-row seat for a disparaging autopsy of the human condition. An unflinching and horrifying deconstruction of our degenerate species’ wilful commitment to replicating the same horrendous fuck ups over and over again.
It is fearless filmmaking that bristles with trigger-pounding set-pieces that will test the boundaries of all who view.Â
An astonishingly bold movie that completely upstages the controversy surrounding the hit Netflix Jeffrey Dahmer drama in terms of glorification. It goes without saying, fans of that show may find themselves in much deeper and more distressing waters if they swim too close to this particular powerhouse of perversity.
As aesthetically appealing as it is morally appalling Megalomaniac constitutes a surreal stomach-churning chase-down of evil personified. Only to find its defensive lair is nothing but a highly polished hall of mirrors.
Where to watch it – Coming soon in cinemas and online streaming from Dark Star PicturesÂ
3.
CANDY LAND
Within their prostitutional commune, there exists a warm camaraderie and touching mutual survival strategies. It is this fascinating dynamic that sets Swab’s film free from its grindhouse shackles and elevates it from the exploitation swamp of its premise.
By humanising its protagonists beyond ambitionless cartoon fuck-holes, the movie is able to transcend its trashy roots and earn its right to outlandishly tasteless set-pieces, audacious wipe transitions, and insane plot directions. That being said, the film contains scenes that will test the boundaries of the most seasoned sleaze merchants and auto-activate the blasphemy reflex of anyone who is remotely religious.
Once an early scene, that will leave Sharon Stone feeling understated, is burned onto your retinas you will be left never knowing which luscious portion of cinematic underbelly it will cook up next. Even the opening titles appear in a pink font Tarrentino would pawn his Lone Wolf and Cub collection for and the genius closing song choice is hilarious, nostalgic, and wildly inappropriate all at once.
Candy Land is far more than just a fuck-puppet freakshow and gore effects exhibit. It is a complex morality puzzle that showcases the lowest denominators of human nature in order to shine light upon the stoicism of hope and the inherent catharsis of a surrogate family.
 This utterly essential genre champion is both a graphic biopsy of the neoplasia that feeds upon the heart of the American Dream and a bleak prognosis of leaving it unchecked. Not since Simon Rumley’s majestically harrowing Red White & Blue has any indie picture felt more effortlessly edgy and relevant.
Where to watch it – Cinema and VOD release date in the USA is on January 6th,2023
2.
TERRIFIER 2
Art the killer clown returns to crank up the coulrophobia in a genuinely epic slaughterhouse of a sequel. A marathon of mutilation so phenomenally vicious and gleefully sadistic it single-handedly redraws the bloody boundary lines of the slasher genre.
3 years in the making Leone’s movie is ambitious on many levels. The body count is dispersed evenly to create an ebb-and-flow of carnage that allows us to steady our stomachs and anticipate the next outrageous set piece.
Horror junkies will be excited to see how the character of Art has been developed and David Howard Thornton is more than up to the task. The quirky awkwardness and Chaplinesque eye rolls are still there, but it’s a cleaner more subtle performance that draws even more on the expressive techniques of mid-1920s silent cinema. However, when Art punches the beast mode button he is even more kinetically nasty and primordially savage than before.
Art already has a legion of devotes out there in horror land, indeed no other screening in the exalted history of Frightfest has sold out quicker. In terms of offering a highly upgraded product to fans, Terrifier 2 is an irrefutable triumph.
Utterly merciless and profoundly spiteful this unrelenting conveyor belt of suffering marks the coming of age of a chilling horror icon for our times.
Where to watch it – DVD –Â STREAM
1.
MISSING
Gripping undercurrents swirl beneath the surface of this intoxicating genre timebomb that features more twists than an amphetamine buffet at a Chubby Checker convention.
Former ping-pong club owner Santoshi and his feisty young daughter Kaede are drowning in despair and struggling in near poverty after the traumatic demise of her mother. When Santoshi expresses an interest in a 3 million ¥ bounty on the mixed-up head of a deranged serial killer, and then promptly vanishes, Kaede is convinced her dad is hunting him down.
As with classic head-fucks like Oldboy and I Saw the Devil before it, a great deal of the pure cinematic joy of Missing is the unerring ability to ravish its viewers with jaw-dropping curve balls and revelations.
The characters are fleshed out beautifully with subtly scathing dialogue and sublime acting. Not least from Aoi Itô as the unwaveringly persistent Kaede. It’s a powerhouse performance of tightly masked vulnerability, dogged bravado, and degraded optimism that ricochets around the screen leaving exit wounds of empathy. Easily one of the most accomplished and effortlessly endearing performances of the year.
Visually, Missing stays pragmatic for the most part so as not to telegraph nor trigger the plethora of narrative booby-traps. But when called upon to embellish and connect the multiple perspectives Naoya Ikeda‘s supple cinematography shifts gears with an exhilarating rush of creative horsepower.
Those who come for the hype of gut-punching reveals must also stay for the epically morbid danger wanks, sadistic pop-up porno mancaves, and hack-saw mutilation if they are to unveil the mysteries of Missing, for its devastating outcome stays buried until the genuinely mesmeric, outrageously metaphorical final scene.
Go in blind and you will be rewarded with a masterclass in movie misdirection that will leave you aching to recommend it to others so they too can get ambushed by its latent cunning.
Where to watch it –Blu-ray
Well, that’s it for another year. Heartfelt thanks as always to the distributors, agents, and Film Festival staff and organisers who made this list possible.
Thank you also to the enthusiastic filmmakers who engaged with me and produced such beautifully degenerate and endlessly inventive art.
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