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.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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