Editorials
Best of 2022: 10 Hidden Horror Gems You Might’ve Missed Last Year
Horror is, without question, still the backbone of cinema, even as cinema struggles in these uncertain times. This year saw a number of wins for the genre; original movies like Smile, Barbarian, and X and its prequel Pearl achieved both critical acclaim and box office success, and franchises like Scream, Predator and Hellraiser were all reignited with praised returns.
Like last year, there were a lot of horror movies to watch in 2022. This resulted in movies slipping through the cracks as the year continued, and bigger releases held the spotlight.
These ten hidden gems might have been overlooked at the time, but it’s never too late to discover them.
An Ideal Host
“An Ideal Host”
After circulating at multiple film festivals for a good two years, the Australian horror-comedy An Ideal Host quietly surfaced on streaming platforms this year. Robert Woods and Tyler Jacob Jones‘ offbeat collaboration amassed a steady stream of good word-of-mouth in early reviews. And for anyone new to this movie from Down Under, they can see why it was praised.
Here, an intimate dinner party slowly unravels as an unexpected guest worms its way past the frazzled host. The gathering has a fair deal of uncomfortable banter and interactions to endure before the real trouble begins, but there’s no turning back once that plate of chaos is served. Go in knowing nothing, and you may be pleasantly surprised by what comes up in the most hellish housewarming in recent years.
Revealer
“Revealer”
It’s a damn-or-be-damned kind of world in Luke Boyce‘s first long feature, Revealer. A peep-show dancer (Caitlin Aase) is faced with constant judgment from a pearl-clutching, pious picketer (Shaina Schrooten) outside her job. It’s only when an apocalypse happens that these two polar opposites realize they actually have something in common. And unless they want to die together, the unlikely pair has to set aside their differences, and face both inner and outer demons.
Revealer is a wonderful example of putting two diametrically opposed characters into a room together and forcing them to interact. The heavily synthesized music and neon aesthetic of this ’80s period piece will draw the eye, but the character work is what elevates this movie above others.
Hypochondriac
“Hypochondriac”
One of the most frank and refreshing portrayals of mental health on film this year is in Addison Heimann‘s Hypochondriac. This devastating, heart-on-sleeve story begins with a young potter who is haunted by both childhood trauma, and the fear of becoming what scares him the most: his mother. As Will (Zach Villa) wrestles with his growing concerns, he also starts to see a man in a wolf costume who is invisible to everyone else.
Hypochondriac hits Will’s emotional buttons with a sledgehammer, but Heimann is also never indelicate or inattentive. This is a finely tuned study of the effects of family dysfunction, and a beautifully open and authentic depiction of someone deathly afraid of possible, encroaching mental illness. Not everything is answered in this persuasive psychodrama, and there’s a battle for attention between Will’s mother (Marlene Forte) and Will’s inner wolf, but the movie’s best parts win out.
The Night Shift
“The Night Shift”
Jo Ba-reun‘s Ghost Mansion (also Grotesque Mansion) was first released in its homeland of South Korea back in 2021. It wasn’t until this year that the movie, now renamed The Night Shift, was delivered to other parts around the world. The Korean movie shows a horror webtoonist (Sung Joon) visiting an infamous apartment building for inspiration. As he conducts interviews with several tenants, and learns about their eerie encounters, he soon suspects these urban legends may be true.
The Night Shift uses an anthology format, but the sub-stories and characters are intertwined. There is continuity here despite the segmented storytelling. High production values and a creepy atmosphere improve the overall enjoyability as well. Be on the lookout for a tale that feels straight out of Junji Itō’s head.
The Harbinger
“The Harbinger”
Pandemic-inspired movies aren’t exactly appealing to everyone, in light of the fact that the Pandemic is still happening. So it’s only natural that people aren’t flocking to watch stories about an active illness and senseless deaths ripped straight from the headlines. Andy Mitton‘s The Harbinger, however, manages to make something meaningful and moving out of something tragic and topical.
In times where masking and curbside-shopping are still widely practiced, one quarantined family’s isolation bubble is risked when the daughter (Gabby Beans) leaves to help a friend (Emily Davis) in need. In doing so, the protagonist only attracts an otherworldly and opportunistic entity who deals in nightmares. Like in the director’s other movie The Witch in the Window, The Harbinger seamlessly blends eldritch fantasy and relevant realism. The outcome hits very close to home, but without using COVID as a simple and exploitative gimmick.
The Andy Baker Tape
“The Andy Baker Tape”
The Andy Baker Tape is a tense ride from start to finish. Popular food vlogger Jeff (Bret Lada) goes to meet his long-lost half-brother Andy (Dustin Fontaine) after their father dies in a car accident. The two don’t have anything in common other than DNA, but they get along enough to where Jeff invites Andy on an important road trip. And if everything goes according to plan, Jeff will have his own TV show.
This being a found-footage movie, it’s obvious something bad is going to happen by the end. There’s a particular kind of inevitability about Lada and Fontaine’s Pandemic-born story, yet it’s their on-screen chemistry and the approaching combustibility of their characters’ family reunion that keeps you watching.
The Loneliest Boy in the World
“The Loneliest Boy in the World”
Admittedly, Martin Owen‘s The Loneliest Boy in the World isn’t comprehensively horror in the modern sense of the word, but it does fall in the realm of macabre stories about folks feeling lost and alone. After young Oliver (Max Harwood) loses his mother, he digs up a new family from the local graveyard. His improvised parents and sister then guide him as he comes into his own in a world that he doesn’t yet understand.
Owen channels classic John Waters and Tim Burton in this quirky and colorful zombie comedy. The charming visual style is then reinforced by sincere emotion as Harwood’s character uses less-than-normal means to feel normal again. It’s affecting enough to wake the dead.
Nocebo
“Nocebo”
The horror of Nocebo is slow but guaranteed. In Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan‘s follow-up to Vivarium and Without Name, a successful fashion designer (Eva Green) comes down with a debilitating ailment of unknown origin. Her excruciating pain only subsides when she hires a live-in housekeeper (Chai Fonacier), a Filipino immigrant with unusual gifts.
As in Finnegan and Garret Shanley‘s previous collaborations, the story of Nocebo takes time to cook. There’s also no substantial mystique about the cause of Green’s character’s mysterious malady. However, the manner in which everything plays out from the reveal and onward is gripping, not to mention brutal.
He’s Watching
“He’s Watching”
Another homemade nightmare manifests in He’s Watching. This isn’t going to be for everyone; it’s the farthest thing from straightforward. Jacob Aaron Estes‘ latest movie is so incoherent and evasive a lot of the time that the only natural response is discomfort and maybe frustration. As two isolated siblings fend for themselves in a world plunged into Pandemic uncertainty, they detect the presence of evil in their home.
He’s Watching is a family-run movie assembled by the director and his two children, Iris Serena and Lucas Steel Estes, who each play fictional versions of themselves. Their collaboration results in a severe, hallucinatory and disquieting affair. It’s a demanding horror movie where everything feels absolutely unsafe.
The Leech
“The Leech”
It’s a season of misgiving in Eric Pennycoff‘s The Leech. This seamy comedy shows what happens when a devout and repressed priest (Graham Skipper) opens his home to two uncouth strangers at Christmastime. The host tries to reform the couple, played by Jeremy Gardner and Taylor Zaudtke, but he’s soon mixed up in their toxic relationship.
The movie’s descent into holiday hell isn’t too jarring once Skipper’s character stops ignoring his squatters’ many red flags. And after letting the story simmer, The Leech goes from lurching on the edge of spectacle to jumping straight into the fray. The chuckles come to a full stop as the movie turns black as coal.
Editorials
Before ‘The Blair Witch Project’, ‘Alien Autopsy’ Showed How Real Found Footage Could Feel
The line separating artist from con man is a lot thinner than you might initially believe. While I think we can all agree that lying for the sake of profit is actively malicious behavior, isn’t it also true that the faux documentary aspect of The Blair Witch Project is half the reason why that film became such a cultural phenomenon? After all, if there’s one thing filmmakers have in common with stage magicians, it’s that misleading and misdirecting audiences is simply part of the job.
That’s why I’ve developed a habit of mostly ignoring the moral quandaries behind many of film and television’s biggest “hoaxes” in favor of appreciating the narrative elements that drive productions like Mermaids: The Body Found and even Animal Planet’s highly underrated The Cannibal in the Jungle. However, if there’s a definitive case of a highly publicized broadcast fooling the world into taking it seriously, it has to be Fox’s infamous 1995 TV special Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction.
It’s been over three decades since that eerie footage first haunted television screens right at the peak of the ’90s ufology craze, and in that time, the video has taken on a life of its own. From countless parodies and references in everything from The X-Files to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater (as well as John Dower’s recently released tell-all documentary The Alien Autopsy Scandal, which I’d highly recommend to genre fans everywhere), there’s no denying the legacy of the Alien Autopsy video. However, I rarely see the tape discussed as what it truly is: a highly convincing found footage film directed by a passionate stage magician and brought to life by masterful practical effects work.
That’s why I’d like to invite readers to join me on a deep dive into one of the most infamous broadcasts of all time in an attempt to reevaluate the footage as a fascinating narrative experience rather than a complete hoax.
The TV Special That Convinced Millions It Was Real
Ray Santilli next to Extraterrestrial replica in ‘The Alien Autopsy Scandal’
For starters, regardless of whether or not you believe that there was in fact an extraterrestrial crash in Roswell during the summer of 1947 and that some form of autopsy was performed on the victims, the producers behind the black & white recordings, Ray Santilli and Gary Shoefield, insist that their video was a “restoration.” Though I’d argue that the proper word is “remake”of genuine footage that was too damaged to air on television. That’s why the duo went on to recruit filmmaker and eccentric magician Spyros Melaris and sculptor/monster designer John Humphreys to bring their version of the autopsy to life and sell it to the highest bidder.
This is where the story of the Alien Autopsy as a narrative experience really begins. Melaris claims that his approach to the faux recording consisted of striving for extreme period accuracy in both shooting equipment and setting while also planting subtle details that would initially seem like mistakes but could later be revealed to actually fit the time period. That being said, the filmmaker was under the impression that the short would be released for free as a PR stunt, with the team later producing and selling an informative documentary chronicling exactly how the footage was faked and commenting on how easy it is to manipulate public perception with a good old-fashioned magic trick.
This obviously isn’t how things went down, and that’s likely the reason why Melaris has since distanced himself from everyone else involved with the project. Yet, no amount of behind-the-scenes drama can undermine the genuine effort that went into making the short as impressive as it is. From the sourcing of real animal organs from a local butcher to make the organic part of the creature more lifelike to the highly detailed sculpt that made use of a hollowed-out underlayer that could be filled with fake blood and assorted viscera, there’s a reason why so many Hollywood specialists are still impressed with the artistry on display here.
Of course, the believability is only half the story, as I think that the best part of the autopsy is how Melaris builds on the existing tension by obscuring certain details and often embracing the chaos of what a real examination of extraterrestrial life could feel like. The camera often goes out of focus at just the right time to make certain effects hit even harder, and we can only speculate as to what the hazmat-suited doctors are gesticulating about during the operation. There’s a real air of mystery to the whole thing that almost makes it feel like a cosmically terrifying, cursed film containing forbidden knowledge that civilians were never meant to see.
So when Fox’s Fact or Fiction brings in the specialists to comment on the film and its otherworldly subject, it’s no surprise that we end up with one of the most memorable mockumentaries of all time – albeit one where the participants are unaware that the footage they’re commenting on is basically a large-scale practical joke. A joke that the network was obviously in on, as many participants claim that the TV special cut out significant portions where guests point out that they believe the footage to be an elaborate hoax.
The Lasting Impact of the Hoax Turned Cultural Event
Regardless, I remember going to bed terrified after watching reruns of the special and thinking about the respected pathologist who claimed that the body was almost certainly inhuman, with even effects maestro Stan Winston commenting on how difficult it would be to recreate some of these visuals through practical puppetry. That’s not even mentioning Jonathan Frakes’ dramatic hyping up of the disturbing imagery as if he was talking about the tape from The Ring, with his spooky demeanor here likely being responsible for his later role as the host of Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction a few years later.
Personally, I’d argue that the Alien Autopsy phenomenon had just as much of an impact on me as a horror fan as The Blair Witch Project, a film that was almost certainly influenced by the success of this immensely popular hoax (to the point where they even produced their own TV special commenting on Heather’s found footage). Even if Fox didn’t intend to produce a narrative feature about the aftermath of the Roswell crash, the end product still holds up remarkably well as a highly entertaining mockumentary exploring the idea that we may not be alone in the universe.
While neither Santilli nor the rest of the production team has ever commented on this, I also think it’s very likely that the idea of a faux Alien Autopsy could have been influenced by Dean Alioto’s The McPherson Tape/UFO Abduction. I’ve already written about how this granddaddy of found footage was co-opted by rogue ufologists who began selling bootlegs of the tape at conventions as if it were real evidence of a close encounter, so it’s not that much of a stretch to imagine that Santilli and company could have heard about this phenomenon and been inspired to come up with their own highly profitable hoax.
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that the Alien Autopsy film is recreating any real footage from Roswell, but I can still appreciate the short and the accompanying television event as a standalone horror story that still influences the way we see found footage to this very day.
After all, the possibility that something could be real is often much scarier than finding out for sure – and that’s why I think Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction is still worth revisiting three decades down the line.
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