Top 10 Horror Films 2022 {HorrOrigins List}

Well horror fans, another year has come and gone, and what a surreal year it has been. A year where August felt too long and October was gone in a flash. A little off balance there, but man, have we seen some sights on our screens. Many icons returned, both in front of and behind the camera. Sam Raimi made the first scary movie in the MCU, and the horror elements of Batman comics were finally brought to the big screen. Horror has managed to be fun and serious on all spectrums, and the promise of what’s to come is a great note to end on. Before we embark into 2023's uncharted territory, let’s take a look back at some of the best features to shock and entertain from 2022.

Honorable Mention
Adult Swim Yule Log aka The Fireplace

[Adult Swim] definitely threw everyone for a loop when they released this secret feature as part of their Witching Hour infomercials. What starts off as your expected long form footage of a crackling fireplace slowly becomes a series of events following a couple staying at a remote cabin in the woods. Let’s just say the backwoods killers hiding when everyone gets home is only the beginning. A unique experiment in presentation that goes way above and beyond from Casper Kelly, the director of the channel’s cult favorite, Too Many Cooks. The Fireplace is a twistedly fun and macabre film that’ll have you on the edge of your seat with the shocks it hits you with. It may have come out late in the game, but it’s an experience horror fans didn’t know they needed during the holidays.

10
Bones and All

Suspiria recreator, Luca Guadagnino returns, both to horror and his romance roots, with this road movie about two young cannibal drifters finding each other. Expertly shot, showing off the beautiful ruin of 1980’s Americana across the Rust-Belt states, Bones and All is a surprisingly tender film that captures a new relationship at its fullest and most impulsive. That makes the scenes of our leads devouring the freshly dead all the more stomach churning. It's an unconventional yet gripping story of young love, that is at heart true to its form. Life is unfair, and things don’t go as planned, especially when you’re both eating fingers like chicken wings.
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9
​Prey

In the ongoing struggle of where to take the Predator franchise, leave it to Dan Trachtenberg to literally scale the story back to the 1700s. When a young Comanche hunter sets out to prove herself to the tribe, she finds herself pitted against a skilled hunter from another world eager to conquer the strongest prey in its path. Prey is an absolute crowd pleaser, doubling as one of the best action films of the year while managing to make this scaled back take on the Yautja scary again (that redesigned face reveal will widen your eyes). A wonderful stand-alone edition to this fan favorite series, with a dash of fanservice sprinkled in with a bittersweet connection to the larger story.
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8
​Hellraiser​

Folks, after being strung along by Dimension Films for decades, we finally have the best Hellraiser since Barker’s original. A young woman struggling with addiction comes into possession of an ancient puzzle box, unaware that its purpose is to summon a new order of Cenobites, and the being they serve. A parable of excess and hedonism, delving into the prison one makes for themself in the quest for pleasure. The Cenobites have never looked better, with revoltingly beautiful redesigns to our favorites as well some nasty new characters that McFarlane Toys will have a field day selling. A gloriously grizzly and geometrically framed remake from David Bruckner, that pays tribute to the early entries while carving a path for a future similar to the series’ short tenure at New World.
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7
​A Wounded Fawn

The last surprise of the year, Travis Stevens’ A Wounded Fawn swoops in as one of a few throwbacks to the 1970’s that made it on the list. A charming serial killer woos a recently single museum curator to his romantic getaway cabin with obvious intentions. Just when you think you know exactly where it's going, it hard resets and we're left with a serial killer alone with his warped thoughts. Modern Giallo at its finest, with classic Kodak film stock bringing out every shade of red when the blood starts spraying. It does a 180 from cat and mouse to psychological horror, throwing every insane idea it can think of at the screen until credits, and heads, roll. Like a great piece of art, this is worthy of discovery.
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6
The Black Phone

Scott Derrickson’s triumphant return to horror with this gripping adaptation of Joe Hill’s 2004 short story. Following his kidnapping by a deranged serial killer, a young teenager receives calls from the previous victims through a mysterious phone in his captor’s basement. The Black Phone features some of the best child acting of the year, and an absolutely chilling performance from Ethan Hawke, who despite not being a fan of the genre continues to become a welcome mainstay. It’s a tense, gripping supernatural crime thriller and a crowd-pleasing 1970’s throwback that’ll have you cheering at the screen by the end.
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5
​Hatching

From across the seas in Finland comes this year’s most effective body horror film. When a young girl brings home a mysterious egg, it hatches into a grotesque creature that imprints on her, acting on the repressed emotions she holds towards her influencer mother. Striking that right balance of beauty and disgust, Hanna Bergholm’s Hatching offers one of the most effective monster designs in Alli. And as much as you’ll be retching at this monster’s actions, you’ll still be more revolted at the choices of the mother, who views her family as tools for her following. One of the most effective horror films about the age of social media.
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4
Nope

Jordan Peele’s hat-trick film, Nope is a first of its kind genre hybrid of blockbuster proportions - complete with the IMAX 65mm film treatment. Following the unexplained death of their father, a horse trainer and his sister discover a UFO and devise a plan to capture it on film with the help of an over-enthusiastic tech salesman, and a jaded documentary filmmaker. Hidden beneath that simple premise is a layered rollercoaster of a film about erasure, the cost of spectacle, and literal cloud chasing. Plus, who else but Peele could make a film about a man named OJ, who rides a bronco, and we want him to get away at the end? I see what you did there.
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3
​Terrifier 2

You know a horror film is effective when audiences require emergency services. Following his unexplained rise from the dead, the demonic Art the Clown returns to stalk a brother and sister during his next Halloween massacre. Damien Leone’s Terrifier 2 is arguably the most ambitious slasher sequel of the last decade, and Art the Clown is on the rise to the top of the slasher pantheon. Along for the ride, is the previous film’s traumatized final girl and the introduction of The Little Pale Girl, Art’s demented side-kick. Terrifier 2 is hands down the goriest film of the year, and with it’s over two-hour runtime, it doesn’t waste a second. With Leone promising 3 and a potential 4, the nightmare isn’t ending anytime soon.
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2
​Barbarian

The most surprising major studio release of the year, Zach Cregger’s Barbarian is an unpredictable thrill ride. After a double-booking at an Airbnb in a decrepit side of Detroit, a woman unearths a hidden network beneath the property, discovering truth far more horrifying than her unexpected roommate. Ambitiously converging multiple stories, Barbarian is a thrill ride into the depths of depravity and predation; being equal parts sickening, humorous, and subversive. All this, while crafting a unique and memorable monster as terrifying as she is sympathetic. A true horror classic in the making.

1
​X
and
Pearl

Yup, it’s a tie. Ti West makes his surprise return to film after his stint in TV purgatory with a double feature that proves he hasn’t missed a beat. X is a welcome throwback to 70’s slashers, following a group of amateur filmmakers making a stag film on a rural Texas farm, leading to their elderly hosts exacting violent and spiteful revenge. That could be all fine and good but West surprised everyone with an already complete prequel film, Pearl, that follows our main killer in her youth during the late 1910’s.
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Both films complement each other’s story perfectly, but can each be viewed as stand-alone films in either order. In one year, West managed to release two slashers that cover the themes of agism, the price of fame, life during war, life during a plague, and the joys of cinema escapism itself. It’s also a bloody good time with great kills and an alligator. Whether it’s Grindhouse or Technicolor, this is the beginning of a series we’re going to be paying attention to for years to come.

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Author

Alex Ayres is filmmaker and writer based in Atlanta, GA. An avid genre fan overall, he started his love of horror at age 13, with a double feature of Children of the Corn and Halloween diving head first down the rabbit hole and has not looked back since. A graduate of the University of North Carolina Wilmington with a BA in film and creative writing, Alex has a steady background in screenwriting, having written multiple short and feature screenplays. His screenplays, Archfiend and 6/09 have been accepted into various film festivals and writing competitions around the country, the latter winning best comedy at the Austin After Dark Film Fest in 2019. His recent short screenplay Gallows Meg is currently making rounds in the festival circuit.
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​When not hunched over at his laptop on his third cup of coffee, Alex works as a non-union set worker on various productions in Atlanta, primarily as a Set PA and Health & Safety monitor. In time, Alex will pursue his Master’s in screenwriting. Making film and teaching film is a life-long goal that he’s going the distance with. Alex has been a member of the HorrOrigins family since its inaugural film festival, curating a gruesome and fun time for Fright-Knights and Ghouls.