The Current State Of Horror, 2022
It's Halloween!
If you are on Film Twitter, or if you follow anybody on it, you probably aren’t too far away from the sub-category affectionately referred to as “Horror Twitter”. As you can probably guess, this is the part of Film Twitter that is invested in the Horror genre specifically, hence the name. If you are deep enough on either side of Twitter, you have likely seen tweets before that read to the sentiment of : “wow! 2022 sure has been a great year for horror!” with a collage of some of the biggest horror releases of the year.
For example purposes :
While I was struggling to think of something I could do for another spooky Halloween-themed issue, one of my mutuals (shoutout to the brilliant Salem one of my favorite people on Twitter, definitely follow them) suggested that I could recap and review some of the most popular horror releases of the year, as it’s been such a prominently discussed year for the genre. I liked this suggestion on its own but I still wanted an angle. I decided that while recapping the year so far, I would answer the question we have all been wondering : whether or not 2022 has actually been a good or even great year for the horror genre.
With all of that in mind, don’t view these as reviews. I certainly don’t try to critically defend my stance on them as films. It’s more of a discussion board where I give my broad opinions and use that to answer the question of the year as a whole. Very lighthearted takes, so if I disagree with you on anything… don’t get too nasty about it, please. We’re having a little fun!
JANUARY.
SCREAM.
(Pictured Above : Rising icon Jenna Ortega in the opening scene of 2022’s Scream. Something fundamentally shifted. Photo Creds : The Wrap, Paramount Pictures, Spyglass Media Group)
The first major horror release of the year is an oddly polarizing one. If you follow me or have read my latest newsletter, you can probably guess that I am pro-2022’s Scream, and think it easily falls amongst the top 3 of the franchise. The new cast is filled with mostly welcome additions and I believe making the former survivors legacy acts rather than centering them in this narrative was the only real way to continue the canon. That’s a hot take, but I do believe it. I don’t, however, condone Neve Campbell being undervalued in the negotiations for Scream 6, put some respect on her name! In that sense, I can understand people’s issues with the handling of the property.
Scream of the year 2022 is not groundbreaking or as smart or sharply written as the original by any stretch. It had subversions of expectations and twists up its sleeve, but they all served to just be a fun time and nothing more or less than that, which is personally what I tend to want from fourth sequels in a slasher franchise. However, to give the haters some respect, I do think there was cause in expecting more from it. I said earlier that the Scream franchise hasn’t been groundbreaking since the original, I can see why one would expect rebooting the franchise again to be their chance to change the game again. See : Beyoncé dropping self-titled visuals.
Also a lot of people just hated Sam as a character, no small part due to Melissa Barrera’s acting. She was very much meant to serve as the new protagonist which became a source of contention in the fandom and if you’ve seen Scream!2022, you know how fandoms get! I didn’t personally mind her much, though, I actually liked some of her scenes in the third act, but… fair. Her involvement does bring in Tara played by the brilliant Jenna Ortega, so… you take the wins you can get, right? Also Jasmin Savoy Brown and Mason Gooding were lovely in this. It’s very hard for me to hate this movie and I personally am quite excited for Scream 6. In the end, I think it does what it was trying to do successfully. It just depends on whether that works for you or not.
FEBRUARY.
NO EXIT.
This was a thriller released on Hulu (of note : Hulu became a huge source of horror-thriller cinema this year, good for Hulu!). Anyways, I don’t have much to say about this one. It was a (mostly) one location thriller which I enjoy, but it didn’t have many surprises up its sleeve despite its plot largely hinged on being hypothetically twisty and the secrets its characters have. I blame this on it being adapted from a book. Reading and watching something play out are entirely different experiences. Havana Rose Liu was an excellent lead, though, and Danny Ramirez is why I watched this movie. We love Danny Ramirez on this newsletter.
MARCH.
X. (+ Pearl)
Ughhhhhh…. I really don’t want to bring this up but if I’m going to discuss 2022 horror, it’s integral for me to bring up the fact that we are in the midst of a modern classic slasher trilogy. I fully believe X, Pearl and MaXXXine will be considered amongst the most iconic horror films of the 2020s. They will develop even more of a following as time goes by and it will rank amongst classics, I’m positive. The way they are clearly made with intention, the way Ti West clearly loves cinema and pays homage to the classics, Mia Goth in general. I recognize what it’s doing. Now, with all of that being said… I hope you will not attack me too harshly when I say I am not the biggest fan. I did not particularly like X nor did I love Pearl and I will probably not watch MaXXXine at this point because I’m just convinced Ti West doesn’t make media with me as the target audience, and that’s okay. I can already hear you typing, “Oh, this bitch loves Scream 2022 but hates Pearl? Let’s personally attack her!” and please save your typing. I get it. Nobody wanted to love these movies more than I did. I went into both expecting them to top my year end list, and I tried my hardest, it just wasn’t happening. I actually think I went into X more optimistic than I was when I went into Scream and Scream is one of my most beloved nostalgic properties, so you can never accuse me of being a hater. I’m happy that seemingly everybody else in the nation loves both, though. I deeply want what you all have. Maybe one day I will rewatch the entire trilogy together and it will click that they are actual masterclasses in cinema.
As I said, I’m not here to justify not loving these movies or to critique them. I don’t even have any slanderous thoughts about this trilogy at all. It just isn’t for me specifically and I just can’t lie about that right now. Please… please, keep your boo’ing at a minimum. As I said, I think these will be viewed as iconic horror cinema and for a reason. Any time someone asks me if they should watch these movies, I say yes and that they shouldn’t let my opinion stop them from forming their own. Let’s just leave it at that.
FRESH.
I didn’t have anything for April so I’m choosing to do two for March. Fresh was another product of Hulu’s Year of Horror and Thriller and it was… fine. For such a disturbing subject matter, it really managed to stay in the popcorn thriller lane which isn’t an inherently bad thing by any means, but it does lend it to be more middling than anything. Like, I’m not going to say this was bad cannibal representation, but it’s still odd how such a gross subject matter manages to feel as though I’m watching a Freeform Original at times. Daisy Edgar-Jones did great work though and it does the break from Act I into Act II very well. A fun title card moment.
MAY.
MEN.
Just terrible.
JUNE.
FIRST KILL (SEASON 1).
This is the one Television Program I’m including and, aw… honestly, this didn’t need to be canceled. I think we need to bring back letting shows grow into themselves rather than rushing to a snap judgment based on one season. Was this a great or even very good season of television? No, but it had nothing but room for growth.
A YouTuber I adore recently made a video on this show that effectively explains all of the reasons why it actually did deserve a chance to grow into becoming something greater than it was in just the first 8 episodes. I highly recommend checking the video out :
.
JULY.
NOPE.
(Pictured Above : Emmy winner Keke Palmer and Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya in Nope, Photo Creds : Collider, Universal)
This is one I have recommended before and have been recommending any chance I get. Of course I think it’s excellent. I have actively been meaning to rewatch it but I have also actively been working full time. It quite easily ranks amongst the most visually stunning cinematic experiences of the year and it’s another film I think will be seen as a classic in years to come. It does everything it sets out to do in such a glorious way, not only working as an effective horror experience but also just a true blockbuster as well in the vein of Spielberg, without ever losing sight on what makes Jordan Peele such a great filmmaker. Keke Palmer gave one of the years standout performances alongside such a quickly establishing film icon Daniel Kaluuya. Nothing but high praise from me and if I rewatch this one, it might become my favorite of Jordan Peele’s catalog and quite possibly of the year.
AUGUST.
BODIES, BODIES, BODIES.
I have taken quite literally every chance I have gotten to call this my favorite movie of the year. It has basically become my entire personality. You get it by now. Or you don’t, but you get what it is to me by now. I am literally rewatching it as I type right now. Of note, though, it’s hard to say for certain where it places in the horror canon. Even without getting into spoilers, the journey itself is so different from what an average slasher-horror film does, it doesn’t really fit the mold as you’d come to expect it. Which is why I do understand why it doesn’t work for everybody. It was written with me in mind and not everybody else. It remains the screenplay I wish I had written. Also, everybody’s Halloween costume that has been inspired by it has been truly iconic. A classic in the not j*ss household.
SEPTEMBER.
BARBARIAN.
This one is a shocker favorite for me. I went into the theater completely blind and it was still something completely different than what I expected. The first act crafts such an effectively tense experience before it gets to the point it was building up to and then it spirals into such an entertaining and twisted time. I do prefer the tense horror the first act was to the actual resolution, though I respect the ride as well. Georgina Campbell is one of my favorite horror girls of the year and imagine my surprise seeing Justin Long show up. This is one I would recommend to most horror fans more than some of the other ones, it’s such a good time with something for any fan of the genre.
OCTOBER.
HALLOWEEN ENDS.
(Pictured Above : Did you really think she would kill herself?!?!. Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween Ends. Photo Creds : Deadline, Blumhouse/Universal)
We started this on a polarizing one, we are ending this on a polarizing one, though this one I am less big on. I lead with that to say, my issues do not begin and end with it “not being about Michael and Laurie”. I actually respect the vision, I do. Even though it was heavily marketed as the final showdown, I am not mad that they left the Laurie vs. Michael face-off for the third act. I quite like that it tried to do something different from what our expectations were… I just think it could’ve been done… better. This was done in such a way that was… for lack of a better word, dull and nearly impossible to invest into. I don’t know if David Gordon Green had the vision for the new trilogy from the start and this was his plan all along, if it was I feel as though a key point should’ve been to have the Corey character be a supporting character from the start so when he becomes integral to the (theoretical) FINAL FILM’s entire plot… it isn’t so… jarring and tonally shifting. The first hour is practically dedicated to him and he isn’t even a factor in the third act. We speed-rush an entire character arc and for what? I know some people are defending this movie and I do respect that, but I do ask you if you actually believe the execution was as good as you think it could’ve been. Because I don’t think you really do.
I know I missed out on other favorites of the year. I never did watch The Black Phone. I know there was a new Netflix Stephen King adaptation that I also didn’t watch. I did watch the Hellraiser reboot, though, that was good but I don’t have many thoughts because I had never seen a Hellraiser movie before it. I just watched Run, Sweetheart, Run, last night which only gets a shoutout here for me to say… Ella Balinska, you will always be famous. There are plenty I didn’t include in this issue but not as a slight against them, but… I just don’t have time to list every release ever. Maika Monroe did great work in Watcher, Terrifier 2 is currently making its rounds on Twitter now and I also need to watch Interview With The Vampire, I know, I know.
With all of that being said… My conclusion is that this has been a really fun, entertaining and all around pretty good year for horror cinema. Get off your phone and go watch a movie! Even the ones I had less than positive things to say about have decent fanfare that shouldn’t be taken away from just because I didn’t like them personally. I really do think there’s an audience for everything listed. Is that toxic positivity on my part? The favorite thing I noticed when doing this is that there is such a solid selection of new original releases from this year but then there’s also fresh new retellings and reboots of classic horror and some originals that pay homage to the classics. Something for all categories of horror, really. But to end it on a more interesting note, I want to discuss what I want to see next in this horror moment. What would my ideal 2023 look like in terms of horror cinema?
MORE WITCHES.
Does anybody remember the 2020 effort to reboot The Craft titled The Craft : Legacy starring Lovie Simone? Well, not many people liked it very much but I wanted it to be successful so badly. Not because of strong feelings towards the film itself, but because I desperately wanted for there to be a new resurgence in witch media and it still hasn’t happened yet. I thought the film itself worked just fine and could’ve worked to launch a new franchise had it been successful. Was it a feminist masterpiece? No, but it was passable. It could’ve improved in time but it never got a chance. Anyways, I don’t care about that movie particularly or specifically, but I do care about witches in the media. If there is one way to get me to watch something, it’s by including witches. I will be watching Anne Rice’s Mayfair Witches starring Emmy nominated Alexandra Daddario and I hope for its success if not solely because I want it to throw the first brick in giving us a witchnaissance. I think what you all have with vampires, I have with witches.
MORE SLASHERS.
I know you’re probably thinking, “not j*ss, be so serious. 2022 was thee year of slasher horror, why would you possibly say this? What is your problem? Seriously, what?” And, damn, that’s true... I do think 2022 was a great year for slasher cinema. Scream, X, Pearl and (though hotly debated) Bodies, Bodies, Bodies served as a revival of the slasher genre of sorts. It never really went away, just last year there were the Fear Street movies and There’s Someone Inside Your House (… !), but this year just put full stock in the slasher genre again, and I feel as though that is why I want more of them. Let’s continue making generational defining slasher films. Unrelated but I am also currently working on a script for a slasher.
I am desensitized to the reboot culture discourse at this point. Obviously I am pro-originality at the end of the day, but I think there have been enough worthwhile reboots that actually improve upon the material in different ways, alongside plenty of horrific misses that the conversation ends up going nowhere either way… but… I say all of this to say… if there were ever to be plans of rebooting Jennifer’s Body, I have a pen and am ready to script it.
A very Happy Halloween to you, from not j*ss
“We love Danny Ramirez on this newsletter.”
He’s very attractive man