2022 in Genre (The Bad)
My thoughts thus far on the bad of this year's Horror, Thriller, Mystery & Dark Comedy films (that I've seen).
Hey everyone! First newsletter, kind of intimidating (even though I’m pretty sure two people overall will ever read this) but my name’s Joshua, clearly. My newsletter is literally called “Joshua’s Newsletter”. But I’m two decades old (20), I’m an aspiring screenwriter/filmmaker and I spend way too much time thinking or talking about movies, genre films in particular.
I have a whole letterboxd list of Upcoming Genre Films to make sure I remember their release and I’ve already started a 2023 list.
I was originally going to be talking about every genre film I’ve seen so far this year and put them in three categories: The Bad, The Middle & The Good but I’ve seen 57 so far and I’m not covering 57 films my first newsletter, so this’ll be split in three parts, going from my personal worst to best.
I do not want to go over all of these at the end of the year for my rankings/overview, especially since there’s a good amount still yet to be released.
Keep in mind, even though I’m usually on top of things, I still have not seen everything. If there’s anything you might claim I “forgot”, I didn’t. Just simply haven’t seen it yet. I already know which films I have to catch up on. Ok cool 👍.
Oh and please don’t get personally offended if you love these movies. It’s just my opinion and if you haven’t seen any of these I implore you to watch them cause you might dig them! They just didn’t work for me and that’s ok. I’m speaking my truth.
The Bad
This is a photo I added by typing in the word “horror” and I believe this kinda cool, kinda generic image, is perfect to encapsulate how I’ve felt watching some of these movies by trying to drag myself into finishing it (not ALL of the ones mentioned in this section aren’t THAT bad but we’ll get to that.)
Ok so we’re going to start off with undoubtedly the WORST horror film I’ve seen so far this year and I already know it’s not going to be beaten. I don’t consider myself a hater, I genuinely don’t like shitting on movies/tv/music/whatever that I don’t like. I usually just say “it wasn’t for me” and move on. Most people say I’m way too nice with my movie reviews and I think maybe I am. I know how much hard work goes into a film and I just don’t like adding to the pile, especially if it’s already gotten such poor reviews.
However, this one I can honestly say I hated. This would be a big deal if you know me in real life, cause I rarely say I hate something. This especially hurts cause this director made one of my favorite horrors of 2020, everyone I present the worst movie, regardless of genre, that I’ve seen this year:
DASHCAM (dir: Rob Savage) Momentum Pictures
Sorry for the low-res photo, actually no I’m not. The quality of this photo is just as shitty as the movie.
Wow. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
I read quite a bit of reviews before watching, with everyone talking about how annoying the protagonist was and how she legitimately ruined the film based purely off her annoyingness. I thought there’s no way the lead is that annoying, “they’re all most likely exaggerating” I thought. Boy was I so, so, incredibly wrong.
First off, Rob Savage is the director of this piece of shit, borderline unwatchable “film”. Rob Savage’s well-made “Host” the 56-minute Shudder original made on Zoom during the height of the pandemic, was one of my favorite viewing experiences of the year. When I heard about him signing a Blumhouse deal, along with a good amount of other projects including his upcoming “Boogeyman” film for Hulu (based off the short story by Stephen King), I was so excited for him. Holy shit, what MAJOR downgrade.
The film follows an obnoxious right-wing Internet personality who has a…you know what, I genuinely don’t wanna spend more time on this movie then I’ve already have. A lot of people have already talked about everything wrong with this movie, just go read those.
What I will say though, that I feel like people are failing to mention in their reviews, is how it’s surprisingly poorly made. “Host” utilized the Zoom setting and the effects so well, “Dashcam” has a bigger budget yet it’s still not well directed. I’ve seen people say “This movie is cuckoo, it’s so crazy” NO IT ISN’T. Everything done in this movie has already been done significantly better with other found footage films.
You might be thinking “Well Joshua, ‘Host’ wasn’t very original either” and to that I agree but it was EXECUTED well. The scares were well-done, the characters felt real enough and it knew when to end. The scares in “Dashcam” are so poorly directed, we’re shaking a lot of the time so we don’t even know what the fuck happens and when we do see something it’s bad VFX with red paint looking “blood”, a generic jumping demon with jumpscare sound effects in a FOUND FOOTAGE movie, why the fuck is there musical cues in a found footage movie?
Alright, I promise 99% of the time if I don’t like something, I say something brief and move on, this was the rare exception. I truly hate this movie. Alright I spent WAY too much time on this, moving on.
I attended the Sundance film festival back in January of this year and also 2021 (virtually of course) and I saw 9 genre films. This was easily the worst.
SPEAK NO EVIL (dir: Christian Tafdrup) Shudder
Looks like all of these photos are going to be low-res, sorry, I’ll figure out how to get this shit together next newsletter hopefully.
I love bleak horror movies. I love watching a horror movie and have there be an unhappy ending. An ending where there’s absolutely no hope for any of the characters. When it’s done right, it results in some truly chilling and memorable endings. “Speak No Evil” is an example of how NOT to make one.
The film hasn’t been released here in the U.S. yet officially (it comes out on Shudder later this year) so I’m not going to go very in-depth on this one. What I’ll say is my major problem with the movie is the finale and how the main characters do not act like real people, much less real parents. The director himself isn’t a horror fan and honestly, it shows. It’ll make you mad, but not in it’s intended effect, you’ll just be mad you wasted time on it.
Alright, next is the most boring film I’ve seen all year…
ABANDONED (dir: Spencer Squire) Vertical Entertainment
Emma Roberts gives her all in the most sleepy horror film of the year.
This movie was so incredibly boring that I got on my phone by the 30-minute point. Whenever I watch a movie, especially for the first time, I make it a point to not be on any electronics and give my full, undivided attention. My mom even asked by the 1hr mark how much time was left.
This movie sounded incredibly generic and has an incredibly basic premise, so I was expecting something different, a subversion to our expectations on the “family moves into a haunted house” cliche. Wrong, it doubles down as a lukewarm, poorly-directed haunted house affair and attempts to stand out for it’s messages of postpartum, which sounds good in theory, but isn’t executed very well.
This movie is also much longer than it needed to be, for absolutely no reason. Easily 15-20 minutes could’ve been cut. Emma Roberts really is trying here, and she isn’t bad, but nobody is giving her anything to work with. Michael Shannon is also in this for some reason? Not that I’m complaining, he’s always good and he’s fine here, but he must’ve been friends with the director or something.
If you can make it through this, we deserve compensation, an award or something.
Alright, next we have the shortest film on this entire list.
HOMEBOUND (dir: Sebastian Godwin) Brainstorm Media
One of the year’s most baffling horror films.
“Homebound” is kind of a strange one to talk about. The premise is intriguing, about a young woman who visits her fiancé’s children for the first time and finding them behaving in strange ways, but literally everything else about it isn’t very good.
The direction is not very strong, I did not feel a presence behind the camera. The writing also hits a crossroad fairly early along in this already very short movie that has 67-minutes of footage. The acting isn’t anything to write home about, the lighting and cinematography isn’t anything special. It’s competently edited I guess? I still think it’s watchable though, but it isn’t very good.
No spoilers of course, but there is an attempt at an abrupt ending that does not have the intended effect. It doesn’t feel like “OMG what just happened? I’m so unnerved”, it feels more like “Damn they just ran out of budget and couldn’t afford to shoot the rest of the script”. Wouldn’t recommend, but we’re all different so give this a shot, it might work for you, I know a good portion of people liked it so.
Alright, next one up is…just what on so many levels.
THE TWIN (dir: Taneli Mustonen) Shudder
This Teresa Palmer-starrer wants to blend two different horror aesthetics together, with results working for neither.
There’s a Shudder original film called “Lake Bodom” that is very underrated and subverted certain expectations of the teen/camp slasher. That film was directed by the man who made this boring, unoriginal, unimaginative, tired work.
This wants to be a mixture of creepy kid horror like “The Omen” and “The Bad Seed” mixed with the cult/folk horror aesthetics of “Midsommar” or “The Wicker Man”. It does a poor job of both. The only good thing I can really compliment here is Teresa Palmer’s solid lead performance and a nice visual or two.
Overall, I would say there’s obviously worse stuff to watch out there, but I wouldn’t necessarily call this a “good” choice either.
Next, we have one of the worst Stephen King adaptions since probably ‘The Dark Tower’ (which I haven’t seen myself but have heard nothing but terrible things about it).
FIRESTARTER (dir: Keith Thomas) Universal Pictures
Poor movie. Just not good. The best thing about this is undoubtedly John Carpenter’s score, which admittedly made a moment or two feel alive when it kicked in.
Performances are so-so, Keith Thomas retains very little of the direction that made “The Vigil” good and it improves absolutely nothing of the original novel or the 1984 film.
I’m already not a fan of this story to begin with so instead of trying to change shit up or doing something new or interesting with the concept, it just ends up being the same boring, campy (in the bad way), flavorless chore.
Also, I can not believe this had a $12M dollar budget, unless you gave $10M of it to Zac Efron, but he isn’t even that famous anymore. This looked like one of Blumhouse’s ‘Into the Dark’ episodes or one of their ‘Welcome to the Blumhouse’ movies for Amazon Prime. Shocked this was a theatrical release.
The actual visual effects of this film are so bad they rival a CW show. The one thing you better get right about your “Firestarter” film is your actual fire effects, that’s the whole hook of your movie. It looks like Action Movie FX you would do on your iPad back in 2012. Ok, not that bad, but still nowhere near good.
Next we have the prime example of some of the worst that A24 horror can offer.
MEN (dir: Alex Garland) A24
Alex Garland’s worst directorial effort yet, also feels his most pointless.
This feels like Alex Garland trolling. This feels like Alex Garland seeing the huge boner people have for A24 and thinking “these people will eat anything up that doesn’t give them any clear answers, a shit ton of symbolic visuals to decipher and some weird visuals”.
I’m an Alex Garland fan by the way. I love “Ex Machina” and “Annihilation” and hearing this being a folk horror from him, I was pumped. I’m also a Jessie Buckley fan, so I knew if anything at least we’d get a good performance from her. I was right on the latter.
Jessie Buckley is very good and much better than the film itself requires from her. I would say she’s probably the best part of it. I think there’s some pretty cinematography going on in certain parts, but I was mostly shocked on how uninspired this felt visually compared to Garland’s last two works.
I know, I know, Garland’s last two films were sci-fi films, of course there’s certain visuals and styles for sci-fi that wouldn’t translate into folk horror, I know, I know. I wasn’t expecting those sci-fi type of visuals though, I just don’t think “Men” is very well-made. I think the VFX in the final act was incredible, but that’s definitely more of a testament to the VFX/Prosthetics team.
What bugs me the most of this is that goddamn screenplay. This screenplay thinks it is WAY more clever than it actually is. It has no more to say then “Men have tendencies to not take women very seriously and abuse them and it’s wrong”. Ok? That’s something that the audience already agrees with, who is this for? Do you think some wife-beating misogynist is going to watch this and think “Oh my god I see how I’ve been acting, I’m going to change my ways”. No! We already agree with this message.
It can’t even give us some good horror sequences! I was relying on the horror scenes to save this movie and it didn’t deliver them! The only sequence I really liked in the movie was the tunnel sequence that happens like twenty minutes in. The ending sucks and the whole thing just feels misguided.
I also feel like I should mention that “Hereditary” was my favorite horror movie of the 2010s. I love and adore “Midsommar”, “The Witch” and “The Lighthouse” and I really, really like “It Comes at Night” and “Saint Maud”. I’m a fan of A24 horror. This was the rare miss for me and it really missed the mark.
Next, we have probably the most heartbreaking one for me.
YOU WON’T BE ALONE (dir: Goran Stolevski) Focus Features
One of the best ideas for a horror movie in a while is unfortunately wasted in Goran Stolevski’s debut feature about a young witch assuming people’s bodies to see how life is like in their skin.
I wanted to love this movie so bad. It’s gorgeously shot, boosts good performances with wonderful cinematography. Everything else unfortunately just didn’t work for me.
This is a movie that wants to talk about what human life is all about and what makes us human. Of course you’re never going to touch the surface on what it means to be human in an hour and forty-nine minutes, but it feels like there wasn’t even an attempt here.
This movie kept going on boring monologues after monologues about the same thing. It feels very shallow, there really isn’t a lot explored for what it means to be human. Some of the monologues reminded me of high school poetry at times and it just feels like a waste of time overall to me.
Of course, with all the movies on this list, I recommend watching and forming your own option. This really worked for a lot of people and you might be one of them!
Next, we have our first non-horror on the list, a thriller starring one of my favorite people in the entertainment industry, Keke Palmer.
ALICE (dir: Krystin Ver Linden) Vertical Entertainment & Roadside Attractions
This well-intentioned thriller’s only bright spot is Keke Palmer’s lead performance.
There is a lot going on in the one hour and forty minute runtime of “Alice”. Too much going on. My main complaint is that this felt like a six-episode miniseries suddenly turned into a film overnight. We are moving WAY too quickly through this thing, we don’t get to see crucial moments of character recovery in favor of just rushing to the next plot point.
Keke Palmer gives a typically solid performance and overall is the only good thing I can really say about it. It’s not well-written, it’s not well-directed, it’s not well-lit. Just unfortunately a waste of Keke Palmer’s talents.
Next we have a bad genre mashup.
BARBARIANS (dir: Charles Dorfman) IFC Midnight
This mashup of awkward comedy and home-invasion thriller mesh into a surprisingly very forgettable film.
I always forget this movie exists. I forget that I watched it. I remember what happened in it and everything once I remember it exists, but I just find this so forgettable. There’s nothing special about this one.
Performances are fine, direction is serviceable, nothing about it stands out visually or narratively, even though it switches into a home-invasion thriller in the final thirty-five minutes. It has stuff it wants to say, but it doesn’t do it well.
Overall, just very meh.
Next, we have layers to discuss of this production.
SHUT IN (dir: D.J. Caruso) The Da- The Daily- 🤮 (don’t worry I streamed this elsewhere)
Melanie Toast’s pretty great screenplay is shut in by budget constraints and a poor lead performance by Rainey Qualley.
I have a whole history with this script when I read it back in 2019 and was so excited for Jason Bateman to direct. I’m not gonna waste time talking about this when you can just read my letterboxd review where I go a lot more in-depth (albeit incoherently lol).
Next we have a poor man’s Hitchcock film.
WINDFALL (dir: Charlie McDowell) Netflix
Charlie McDowell’s Hitchcock “inspired” film feels a lot more like a poor impression of one.
Jesse Plemmons stands out here, as he always does, great actor, love seeing him. Unfortunately the first two acts feel like a rip-off of Hitchcock’s thrillers. It found it’s footing in the final act and I do like the ending, unfortunately nothing can save the very forgettable first two acts.
Next, we have Christina Ricci trying her best in an uninspired retread of better movies.
MONSTROUS (dir: Chris Sivertson) Screen Media Films
Honestly what would you expect from Screen Media’s slogan of “A Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment Company”. Also, did you notice I learned how to get high-res images finally 😎.
Christina Ricci is genuinely trying here and unfortunately it isn’t working very well (watch “Yellowjackets”, she’s great on that). It’s kind of like the Walmart version of “The Babadook”.
I really like the production design and costume design, the only good things about it. Creature was kinda cool at certain points. Competently made. Forgettable though. Nothing special.
And for my final pick, we have a movie that gets jumbled up in its own rules.
THE SUMMONED (dir: Mark Meir) XYZ Films
Mark Meir’s feature debut has some intriguing ideas, but is summoned to being forgotten by it’s incoherent rules introduced in the middle and a post-credits scene that doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“The Summoned” obviously is a lower-budgeted film, however it does a good job of not looking as cheap as it does. The performances are so-so, the direction is competent and unfortunately it’s the screenplay that lets it all down.
The post-credits scene makes everything very confusing and just makes me question all of the rules that were set up earlier. It’s intriguing at first and there’s some cool moments throughout, but it never really leads to anything that satisfying.
AND THAT’S MY LIST! I still have the much longer middle side to make and of course my favorites of the year. But here you go, my personal picks for the overall bad stuff I’ve seen in the genre space this year. Remember, if you love these movies great! I’m really happy they worked for you and I really wish they worked for me too. I also didn’t do a huge spell-check so sorry for any potential grammatical errors.
See you soon with the middle and best section!