The Most Underseen and Underappreciated horror movies of 2022

This year was a great year for horror because every year is a great year for horror if you watch enough movies. While the likes of X, Pearl, Nope, Barbarian, Smile, and Bodies Bodies Bodies cemented themselves as some of the year’s best and brightest, just like any other year, there were far too many others that sadly flew under the radar.

So, let’s take a moment to look at the most underseen and underappreciated horror movies of 2022 and give them their time to shine. It’s about to get spooky up in here.

The Chalk Line

The Chalk Line doesn’t just walk the line between thriller and horror but completely and utterly destroys it. Like the notorious Speak No Evil (2022), also from this year, you’ll find yourself begging for the tension to release for just one moment where you aren’t totally on edge. Your wish will not be granted.

After rescuing a mysterious, traumatized young girl, a couple takes her in as their own in hopes of helping her. However, the longer she stays with them, the more they realize that there is something deeply wrong with the circumstances surrounding her initial disappearance.

Sometimes there are just bad people who do horrific things, and we never get any reason why. It’s not satisfying, but it’s not supposed to be. Real life doesn’t care about giving us closure, something the movie understands to an intense degree.

We tend to go to fiction to get away from reality, but horror is meant to do the opposite. The truth is that there is nothing scarier than the unknown, especially concerning the evil within the human heart. I can’t say I enjoyed this movie, but that doesn’t make it any less brutally effective. And the worst part? It’s loosely based on a true story because, of course it is.

Glorious

J.K. Simmons voices an Eldritch horror inside a rest stop bathroom stall with a glory hole cut into it. If that sentence doesn’t sell you on this movie by itself, I don’t know what will.

Wes finds himself in a peculiar situation after a romantic encounter goes wrong. When he takes a pause for a cause at a rest stop bathroom, he becomes trapped inside, completely unable to escape. To make matters worse, the mysterious entity responsible for his predicament refuses to let him leave until he satisfies a very intimate need.

Obviously, the draw of Glorious is J. Jonah Jameson himself, J.K. Simmons. The guy doesn’t even show up on the screen but manages to command the entire film with a domineering voice that so effortlessly switches between friendly and comedic to flat-out menacing, booming with enough force to shake the pillars of the Earth. An A+ performance from an A+ actor.

The movie does have a secret weapon as well in the way it plays with your expectations. From the plot description, you clearly know where the movie is going, but you’d be wrong. Even more, it weaponizes the inherent sympathy viewers have towards a protagonist to leave you feeling emotionally ravaged in a way that can only be described as diabolically genius. It’s a truly brilliant narrative sleight of hand that slaps you right in the face and knocks you right on your butt.

The Incantation

While this Taiwanese found footage nightmare may have made a bit of a splash on Netflix earlier this year, it seemed to have come and gone in a flash. It’s a real shame, considering it’s easily one of the most terrifying horror films to come out of Asia in years.

The sins of a mother’s past come back to haunt her when a strange curse is placed upon her daughter. Now, she must race against both time and unimaginable supernatural terrors to save the one she holds most dear.

Asian horror is pretty notorious for, well, not f-ing around. The Incantation is no exception. It might be the most unrelentingly terrifying Asian horror flick since the days of Ringu (1998), Pulse (2001), Ju-On: The Grudge (2002), Shutter (2004), and Noroi: The Curse (2005) with Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (2018), May The Devil Take You (2018), and The Medium (2021) being the only other ones in recent memory reaching the same horrifying heights.

This movie is unforgiving. Not a moment goes by that doesn’t feel completely and utterly sinister in its intention. Some horror movies are created to make a point, to say something about grief or trauma or whatever. This one? Its sole purpose for existing is to scare the pants off you and have you running for the light switch. It even manages to mix in some genuinely grotesque body horror that would make even the most seasoned horror fan’s skin crawl. If you feel like testing your metal, check out The Incantation.

House of Darkness

Those of you who saw the incredible Barbarian (2022) know that Justin Long has made his triumphant return to the world of horror. What you might not know, however, is that it’s not the only horror movie this Scream King was in this year.

In this modern remix of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, a man named Hap is invited into a creepy manor by his date Mina after a night out. Little does he know what awaits for him inside could spell his end if he doesn’t play his cards right.

The first thing you need to know about House of Darkness is that there is a lot of talking, like a lot. At its core, it’s a conversation and character piece with all-star performances from every member of its limited cast. The film has a lot to say about things like toxic masculinity and sexual politics, and you’ll listen to every single word because the actors and script are just that good.

However, it is also a horror movie, or else it wouldn’t be on this list. The horror mainly comes from the building tension that makes everything feel off. It takes a hot minute for things to reach their boiling point finally, but once they do, it’ll be well worth the wait. If you’re a patient viewer, you’ll find yourself very much rewarded.

All Eyes

A creature feature with twists, turns, and heart to spare. What more do you need?

When Allen, a disgraced podcast host, gets the chance to interview Don, a grieving widower who claims that there is a monster living in the woods near his farm, he is thrust into a mystery that will change his life forever.

The heart and soul of All Eyes (2022) lie in the relationship that forms between Allen and Don. They’re both broken people looking for connection, even if they refuse to admit it to each other or themselves. Seeing the two of them bond and grow together is a treat, one that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

While it may be mostly character-focused, it’s still a creature feature, and boy does it not disappoint. You may not see a whole lot of the monster, but what you do see is more than enough to leave an impression. But in the second act of the movie, when you eventually see it, the movie willingly goes completely balls-to-the-walls bonkers in a way I will not spoil. Give this one some much-deserved love.

The Harbinger

Standing alongside the likes of Host (2020), The Harbinger (2022) feels like one of the first horror movies to have a truly unapologetic response to the COVID pandemic.

After her friend calls her for help with a matter of life or death, Monique breaks quarantine to help her through the crisis. Unfortunately for her, she soon learns that no good deed goes unpunished when the entity plaguing her friend puts her in its crosshairs.

What The Harbinger has that Host was denied is the luxury of time. Two years have passed since the release of Host, and a lot has changed. We don’t live in a post-pandemic society by any stretch of the imagination, but that doesn’t mean that the world hasn’t been irrevocably changed in ways we could never have perceived.

The key to what makes this movie both an excellent horror flick and pitch-perfect allegory is the entity of The Harbinger itself. It’s like Freddy Krueger for the COVID world, feeding off the fear and isolation brought on by the virus and spreading from person to person like one itself. Equal parts thought-provoking and frightening, The Harbinger deserves a place among the year’s best.