Bud's Top 10 Horror Movies of 2022
2022 is wrapping up and because I really like putting things in neat little lists, here is the Top 10 horror movies of the year in my opinion. Some people might look at these rankings and think “Where is my favorite movie?” So let me tell you about how I rank:
Overall film quality is key but I also weigh heavily on whether or not it’s a horror movie for everyone. Some films that are overly sexual or brutally violent might not bode well for younger viewers so a film with a wider range of appeal ranks higher for me. Also, sometimes horror fans can get stuck in a deep horror vortex of esoteric films with deep profound meaning, these are films that typically don’t translate to the casual horror fan. In short, I rank films higher if I can suggest it to an average joe who will love it and not look at me like I’m a weirdo. Long story short, mass appeal for the win. That all being said, let’s get to the rankings:
#10 - Orphan: First Kill
I’m not a spoiler type of guy so I won’t ruin it for you but this movie certainly has the twist of the year. The movie was fairly paint by the numbers until the 2nd act twist that elevated this film from mediocrity. Other than that, the film does a really good job of de-aging Isabelle Fuhrman to look like a child without using CGI that would have been glaring with the film’s low budget. The violence is present and very gruesome but the star here is truly the storytelling.
#9 - X
Ti West is an absolute genius of the slow burn horror sub-genre and X proves that he can also make sleazy gory horror as well. X is as amazing as it is disgusting and sleazy as it follows a group of mid-’70s porn actors trying to make smut in a barn in middle-of-nowhere Texas but soon find themselves being hunted by a naked horny grandma with a pet alligator. Mia Goth steals the whole show with her dual roles as Maxine and Pearl and it will be great to see what Ti and Mia pull off with the rest of the trilogy with recently released Pearl and 2023’s MaXXXine.
#8 - The Black Phone
Scott Derrickson’s latest plays out more like a dark fantasy than a straight up horror movie. It’s like a long lost Goosebumps story from an alternate reality where RL Stine got heavy into drugs and wrote this and while it has the Goosebumps vibe the publishers decided it was too dark and decided not to publish it. It’s rated R but it has to be for subject matter because there is no nudity, gore or bad language. Perhaps a kidnapped kid stuck in a basement conversing with the kidnappers previous victims via a broken old phone while the kid’s telepathic dream walker sister tries to save her brother was a bit much for PG-13 rating.
#7 - Christmas Bloody Christmas
Killer. Robot. Santa Claus. Joe Begos is an absolute genius of the genre and Christmas Bloody Christmas is just another horror film that he knocks out of the park. The movie is incredibly over-the-top in every aspect which all shines in the glow of neon that Begos is known for. Seriously, this guy seems to know where every neon light exists and exactly how to film them to make them look cool. A true magician of his craft.
#6 - Prey
The best Predator movie that doesn’t star Arnold. I remember a lot of people were salty about this one because there was a woman in the lead and I got it, sometimes. I train in combat sports and I do not deny that there are tons of tough women out there but there is a reality when it comes to size and strength. Sometimes in female lead action movies they have a 100lb skinny woman ninja drop kicking 250lb men and it causes endless eyerolls. Prey doesn’t do this. Sure the main character Naru is an ass kicker but she does so with stealth and strategy. The Predator, who looks cool as hell, thinks she is not a threat because she is a woman and basically ignores her which gives her the opportunity to strike. I hope they make more Predator movies like this one instead of the same cookie cutter sequels of the past where a group of the most muscular guys ever try to punch the predator in his big dumb face.
#5 - Deadstream
The found footage genre continues to evolve and it's great to see. Once upon a time it was just one person holding a shaky camera pointed at the darkness, in Deadstream it’s a disgraced streamer with a Go Pro on his head and a bunch of other Go Pros stuck to the wall. The streamer also looks to make their streams cinematic so he has a Walkman that plays a score in the background. These elements are added with minimal exposition but are able to elevate the film beyond a dude wandering around in the dark with a camera and make the film a bit more like a regular movie. The story is pretty standard but the delivery is top notch. A fantastic horror film with a fair amount of laughs and a main character who is so loveable you can’t stand but hate him.
#4 - Dashcam
Speaking of found footage horror and loveable main characters, Dashcam, from the director of Host, is an absolutely insane film that needs to be seen. The movie follows a crazy, MAGA loving conspiracy theorist who freestyle raps for people on her live stream while she drives around in her car. Her night and stream goes absolutely sideways when she is asked to drive an old woman across town, the only problem is the old woman with the Ariana Grande tattoo just might be a time traveling alien or witch or demon from a cult or something. It’s never fully explained which one, but the livestream drags us through each possibility and the main character Annie never stops rapping or cussing or smoking cigarettes or drinking. It’s amazing and final girl Annie Hardy just might be the new model for a final girl.
#3 - Texas Chainsaw Massacre
When this movie first came out people were super grumpy and as a lifelong Texas Chainsaw fan I was super confused. I mean, the first kill is Leatherface peeling a woman's face off in a field and the final kill is a woman getting decapitated while her sister watches from the sunroof of a self-driving car. It’s the same message as the original, just this time the encroaching arms of modernity in an ass backwards world are not hippies, they’re gentrifying hipsters. This 40+ years later sequel stayed true to the original source material, something that cannot be said about others. I’m looking at you Halloween.
#2 - Nope
Not so much a horror movie in the traditional sense, this movie is closer to Signs than it is to Texas Chainsaw but it just shows the genius of Jordan Peele. The alien entity, Jean Jacket, is an incredible spectacle on screen. The CGI is done so well that it looks more like a nature documentary than a fictional film, it’s truly incredible and this was my number 1 for most of the year until…
#1 - Barbarian.
…Until I watched Barbarian. What in tarnation is this movie? It has this crazy weird non-linear storytelling that first follows two strangers who accidentally double book an AirBnB in the middle of post apocalyptic wastelands of Detroit. Soon, they find a hidden doorway in the basement that leads to a hidden hallway with a hidden room with a nasty mattress and old camera, but wait, there’s more! At the end of the hidden hallway is another hidden doorway that leads to a labyrinth of tunnels beneath the city of Detroit and lurking in these tunnels is a giant nekkid monster lady. Cut to Justin Long singing in his car in sunny California when he gets a call from his agents saying he is fired for making sexual advances against an actress. With his career in ruins, he heads back to Detroit for some time away from the Hollywood spotlight where he too finds the tunnels and the nekkid monster lady who thinks he’s her baby so she feeds him her milk. Cut to, it’s 1980’s, pre-apocalypse and Detroit is a vibrant community but Richard Brake is a serial killer who kidnaps women and makes babies with them and then makes babies with the babies and it’s all insane. This movie is pure insanity. It’s wild, it’s crazy, it’s gross, it’s gory, it’s unpredictable and scary but not just in the “Uh oh, a nekkid monster lady is trying to breast feed me” way but also in the “Oh no, Detroit is a wasteland and there are no cops and when I find a cop they just think I’m a crazy crackhead and might arrest me instead of helping me” kinda way.
As a lifelong resident of the motorcity I can tell you this movie is an accurate representation of Detroit, almost as accurate as Robocop. It’s also my #1 horror movie of the year so check it out
