6 Horror Movies Released in 2022 You May Have Missed

Hatching

Hatching is a body horror coming-of-age movie. The protagonist, Tinja, has a toxic relationship with her mother, who is constantly demanding that she go above and beyond in gymnastics to share her daughter's achievements on her blog. The girl is under constant pressure from constant criticism and unrealistic expectations. Her psyche finally snaps and creates an evil clone that initially looks like a creepy chick.

The hatchling takes revenge on Tinja's detractors and tries to get rid of everything superfluous in her life. The film offers a surprising mix of horror, folklore, satire, drama and allusions to Alien. It deftly dissects a perfect family, revealing the rotten core behind the pretty dollhouse facade and beaming smiles.

Men

Men, produced by the independent studio A24, is a powerful allegory about abuse. A young widow goes to a remote village to recover after the apparent suicide of her husband, but local men immediately start hitting on her, and they all look the same. There are ample allusions to the Bible and Freud and numerous strangers that can broadly be divided into two categories: stalkers or sexists. The message is pretty straightforward: the protagonist who had an abusive, toxic marriage will never be able to feel safe again. Alex Garland (Ex Machina, Annihilation) made a film about the very real things women all over the world have to face daily: harassment, condemnation, gaslighting and violence, and the result is scarier than any supernatural horror flick.

Men is an essential horror film today because of what it says about the state of our society.

The Twin

The Twin is a Scandinavian folk horror film about a child's death.

One of Rachel's twin sons dies in a car accident, so she, her husband and her other son all move to a Finnish village to deal with the grief. But something strange is happening in this remote village: the locals are fixing to perform some pagan rite, and Rachel's remaining son begins to communicate with his dead brother. These developments start driving the protagonist insane: she starts seeing things. But perhaps, she's been seeing things all along, and what we're watching is not a horror movie but a psychological thriller about the devastating effects of post-traumatic stress and how the loss of a child can inflict horrible psychological wounds on a woman's psyche, wounds that may never heal.

The Black Phone

Directed by Scott Derrickson(Sinister), the new film is based on a story penned by Stephen King's oldest son, a story of lost childhood. The Black Phone is set in the 1970s. A masked serial child abductor (Ethan Hawke) stalks the streets of a Denver suburb, abducting children and never getting caught. The protagonist, a boy named Finney, also gets on the serial killer’s radar. The movie is reminiscent of IT and Summer of 84 in which the ghosts of missing kids try to help the new victim and find peace while evil lives on in the neighbourhood.

The visions of Finney's sister and other mystical elements, along with the abductor’s insanity, create an unusual mystery horror that's bound to surprise you.

Earwig

Directed by Lucile Hadžihalilović, Gaspar Noé's wife, Earwig is a terrifying story about a girl with frozen teeth who never leaves her home. Little Mia, who lives with her guardian Albert, constantly has her dentures changed. She cannot see the world outside her room and always feels sick, which is to be expected given her circumstances.

The movie is best defined as arthouse body horror rather than drama. The viewer feels just as confined and claustrophobic as the protagonist, and body horror scenes reminiscent of the beginning of Julia Ducournau's Titane are shown in close-up time and time again. It's not the most accessible film to watch, but it's definitely worth the effort. It's as arthouse as they get: it's got the noir atmosphere, Lynchian narration, Kafkaesque surrealism in spades, and a tangle of mysteries that are just impossible to make sense of.

Hellbender

Hellbender is an auteur horror film directed by the Adams family (no joke). It's about black magic and heavy metal. A mother and daughter live in the woods, practice witchcraft and play in a metal band called Hellbender. A trusting and friendly, if a bit strained, relationship with the overprotective mother keeps the girl in check, but her loneliness results in her gaining uncontrollable powers and turning into a Hellbender – a witch-demon superpredator.

Hellbender is essentially a coming-of-age film about that time in every teenager's life when they don't know how to control their emotions. In terms of the content and theme, it's most reminiscent of the Lords of Salem, which also turns magic into a psychedelic performance about witchcraft legacy.