A year in horror: 2022's hits, misses and modern classics

It's not every year when you can sit back and say, "Wow, there were a lot of really good movies that came out."

This is especially true within the horror genre, which for the past decade has more or less been a hunt for the needle in the haystack when it comes to finding "the good ones." While it's great that horror movies seem to be getting their due and respect, like many other categories in entertainment it has become oversaturated.

Every year around this time, I try to recommend a few horror films I've been watching this month, as per the Halloween and October tradition. However, once I started going down the list, I'd realized a good portion of them had come out this year, which is almost never the case.

Of course, there were the big familiar names returning, such as "Halloween Ends," which make of that what you will. You can read my thoughts from last week's column.

Then there was also other major franchises being rediscovered, such as Clive Barker's "Hellraiser" getting a new modern take on Hulu, as well as the latest "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" on Netflix in February. And we can't leave out "Scream" returning for its fifth installment for the first time without its creator, the late great Wes Craven.

Rob Zombie also went back to the 1960s with his reimagining of "The Munsters" on Netflix, while Disney brought us back to Salem, Massachusetts with the long-awaited "Hocus Pocus 2." Can't say I've seen either of them yet, but the vast majority of reviews haven't been too kind to Mr. Zombie's interpretation of the classic series, or the return of the witchy Sanderson sisters.

While technically a 2021 film, "The Black Phone" released in 2022 by Blumhouse ranks among the best of the year, in my opinion. It's partly because it's based on a Joe Hill short story (a.k.a. Stephen King's son), but captured the 1970s as I could only imagine what it was really like. Also, Ethan Hawke plays a pretty cool psychopath when the job calls for it.

Another favorite from this year was Ti West's "X," which again harkens back to the 1970s "Texas Chainsaw" vibe, from the cinematography to the fashion and overall atmosphere. We also got a sequel/prequel most recently with "Pearl." So that's two really great movies all in one year.

Perhaps the greatest surprise for me this year was Zach Cregger's "Barbarian," which just debuted on HBO Max. Talk about twists and turns, suspense, humor and all the best ingredients you need for a modern classic. Also, the less you know going in, the better.

Then there was the hype surrounding the release of "Terrifier 2," the latest in the saga of a new bonified horror icon, Art The Clown. An interesting fact about this film is that, for one, it was entirely crowd-funded and released in major theaters. What's most amusing is that attendees to the 2.5-hour gorefest were also being given barf bags at the theaters, a popular gimmick for horror films way back in the 1950s-60s.

What was most exciting for me in 2022 was seeing the return of two of my favorite auteurs to the genre, David Cronenberg ("The Fly," "Videodrome," "Scanners") and Dario Argento ("Suspiria," "Deep Red"), who both returned to their roots for the first time in years, if not decades.

With Cronenberg, we got the body horror "Crimes of The Future," which tackles the next phase in human evolution in a dystopian future where humans cease to feel pain, using this to create performance art out of things like invasive surgery and other forms of body mutilation. It's creepy. It's weird. It's a Cronenberg movie.

Argento's "Dark Glasses" was not only his return to the Italian Giallo murder-mystery genre he helped make popular in the 1970s-80s, but it might be his best film in decades. The movie follows a prostitute who loses her sight after a serial killer runs her car off the road. Using the help of a young Asian boy named Chin, they fight to discover who this killer is and if they have what it takes to stop him.

Needless to say, this has been an exciting year for horror films, which doesn't happen often enough. What's more exciting is the year isn't over. The holiday season is always ripe for new horror, most-notably this year with the upcoming "Violent Night" starring David Harbour of "Stranger Things" fame.

Is it crass to say it was a "bloody good year?" Either way, I'm saying it.

Jay Powell is a reporter for The Daily Herald. Contact him at jpowell@c-dh.net or follow him on Twitter @JayPowellCDH.

This article originally appeared on The Daily Herald: A year in horror: 2022's hits, misses and modern classics