Last week, when I wrote my thoughts on Zach Cregger’s “Barbarian.” I mentioned how it was a fairly smart, darkly humorous, and sometimes horrific ride. However, I disagreed with some of the people crowning it the best horror movie of the year.
“Barbarian” is still going strong at the box-office, having so far amassed $29 million domestically on a limp $4 million budget. Of course, the horror box-office champ this year has got to be Scott Derickson’s compulsively watchable “The Black Phone,” which made $90 million domestically on a $16 million budget.
This coming week sees the release of Parker Finn’s generic, but nevertheless exciting “Smile,” another worthy addition to the 2022 horror cannon. Finn’s film can’t help but veer into genre tropes by its conclusion, and it’s not a great movie, but there’s something vitally alive about it.
Regardless, this has been quite the year for horror. There’s something about using the genre in 2022 that brings out a kind of fearlessness in filmmakers — you can play around and be more forthcoming when making horror, the risk-taking is more accepted as your audience won’t be as sensitive to certain topics.
If it were up to me, Mia Goth’s deliciously twisted performance in “Pearl” would be an Oscar lock (and I’m not the only person who thinks that). Even Martin Scorsese sung its praises last week.
Also, for my money, the best horror movie I’ve seen this year is Chloe Okuno’s “Watcher” — a film that honored ‘60s Polanski and even went as far as modernizing his style for the 21st century.
Still to come this year, Luca Guadagnino’s “Bones and All,” said to be a very gory mix of ‘Texas Chainsaw’ and Malick.
As it stands, the 10 best horror movies of 2022:
“Watcher”
“Pearl”
“The Black Phone”
“Fresh”
“Barbarian”
“Speak No Evil”
“The Innocents”
“X”
“Dashcam”
“Prey”
Paul Greengrass’ "The Uprising," starring Andrew Garfield, opened to $3.2M from 2,068 theaters this weekend. Yikes. The budget hasn’t been disclosed, but is said to be in the $20-$30M range.