Top Ten List: 2022 Year in Review

 

TOP TEN LIST: 2022 

 

10, The Spine of the Night: In the vein of rotoscoping classics like "Fire & Ice" or Heavy Metal", The Spine of the Night is a gory throwback to classic dark fantasy with gore, blood, sex, and all the other good things I loved about those classic films of 70's and 80's. This is the kind of movie you want to watch with the lights of and maybe half in the bag... beautiful animation, great synth music, and good voice performances from Richard E Grant and Lucy Lawless. 

 

9. The Weird Al Yankovic Story: Gloriously entertaining and informtive look at the tortured life of an artist that defined his generation. The story of Weird Al is a rags to riches story that follows the haunted experiences of child abuse, the tormenting lack of acceptance, and the wild world of teenage Polka parties. Truly a deep look into the very true and very accurage life of Weird Al Yankovic. Never forget him. Never. 

 

8. Violent Night: A team of violent predators break into an affluent home on Christmas Eve and only one man can stop him... Santa Clause hmself, the jolly bowl full of jelly. And guts full of blood, cracked skulls full of brain matter, and broken bodies left scattered about and limbs akimbo.  

 

7. Nope: Tautly wound story from Jordan Peele, the Haystack family is in deep trouble when the patriarch (David Keith) dies from a mysterious circumstance. A coin falls from the sky, embedding itself in his eye-socket. This leads to his children inheriting the business; a black-owned horse-training facility that provides for Hollywood features. The brother and sister pair (Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer) are not entirely compatible with one another and eldest son OJ is forced to sell horses to the neighboring Western Attraction roadshow run by former child actor Ricky (Steven Yeun). 

 

6. The Northman: A prince escapes after the brutal murder of his father and spends the next several years working toward revenge against his uncle.  With the help of a witch slave, the young warrior will face his past, his mistakes, and his future.

 

5. Terrifier 2: Unrelenting and merciless, the Terrifier 2 is a gory and nasty film. A sequel to the break out horror hit from 2016, Damien Leone's film features old school practical effects and a simple plot o deliver the goods for the Halloween season. Forget that other slasher killer for a moment and check out Art The Clown's latest endeavors as he chops, slashes, smashes, chokes, shoots, and otherwise pummels the audience with a ruthless barrage of madhouse kills. 

 

4. X : The throwback classic exploitation nasty from director Ti West is the first in a proposed trilogy that already saw it’s sequel (prequel?) released in the same year. And will e higher up on this very list.  

 

3. Inu-Oh: Genre defying and visually stunning, Inu-Oh is a story ABOUT storytelling and the spirt, art, and soul that persists beyond many challenges. It can unify, it can exhilirate, and it can doom or save us all in various stages. Sometimes all at once. 

 

2. Pearl: A masterfully directed character study of a delightfully maniacal lead. Pearl is an amazing follow-up to Ti Wests' "X" and features a brilliant performance from Mia Goth. Presented in vibrant technicolor and beautifully shot, no stone is left unturned in this film. And with such a brilliant use of flowery adjectives, I bid you adieu. 

 

1. Everything Everywhere All At Once: If 25 year old me was told "The best movie you will ever see involves Michelle Yeoh and Jamie Lee Curtis having a Kung Fu battle, hot dog fingers, and anal plugs" that version of me would have looked at the insane rambling lunatic and told them he had no money and to stop bugging him. As it is, the 47 year old me who just watched Jamie Lee Curtis summon the power of prowrestling across the multiple dimensions in order to fight Michelle Yeoh is completely enthralled with the lunacy that took place in my local cinema. A must see film that goes deeper than the surface level insanity.  

 

OF HONORABLE NOTE: 

 

Superhero movies are starting to fall into the realm of diminishing returns, bringing in the audience but not really creating any new stories or challenges. The Batman found itself breaking the character down to it's detective roots, while Wakanda Forever struggled to find it's footing after the death of the lead actor for the Black Panther franchise. Black Adam was a fun little jaunt, and the latest Thor film brought very little to to the tale for fans and box office alike. 

 

Horror found a lot of exposure this year, going for the jugular with films like Barbarian, Hellraiser, and the Scream film. Some art house and foreign affairs caught my eye, like Saloum and Hellhole. Prey was an enjoyable jaunt that did something newer with the franchise that could, potentially, provide a building block for future franchise stand-alone feaures. 

 

Biggest Disppointments: I also had a number of disappointments this year- Halloween Ends at the near top of the list, providing a jaunt into something a bit outside of what I wanted to see. While not a terrible film in itself, it wasn't what I wanted. I was also disappointed by Rob Zombie's attempt at The Munsters, the latest Firestarter film (What was that??? Seriously?), the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre film, and the Terror Train remake.  

Scream 2022 and Belle (AKA: The Dragon and the Freckled Princess)

 SCREAM 2022

My initial thoughts on the latest film in the Scream franchise is that it does precisely what the Scream franchise does and there's no reinvention of the wheel here. In fact, it' meta commentary on modern horror movies is going to probably split a vast majority of the fan base, and I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing. I am not entirely sure that the commentary will hit with quite the same snark and humor as previous entries so that will be as it will be. 

Scream (2022) picks up in Woodsboro, the small town location of the original film, eschewing the numerical order as part of he "requel" commentary of the film. As we learn from this movies Expert, a "requel" is a film that acts as neither a sequel nor a reboot but a combination of both. That modern films who take this approach are trying to appeal/respect the older fans while also creating something "new" on the back of something that's already come before. It's a convoluted explanation, but works as a commentary on modern films currently making their way through streaming, cinemas, and direct to blu-ray. It' can't say it's Scream 5, but it's still basically Scream 5. 

It's been decades since the events of the first film, and all the kids are watching "elevated" horror these days and stupid slashers are cliche thing of the past. Nobody is likely to receive a mysterious phone call, because we have caller ID and we have Smart Phones, and security systems, and all the other stuff that makes us feel seen and safe- but then Tara Carpenter (Jenna Ortega) receives just that sort of a call with a lingering threat that leads her to run out of her house- and directly into the waiting attack from a killer with a knife. This draws her older sister back to town, Sam Carpenter (Melissa Berrera) and it isn't long before a connection to the original Wooodsboro killings would be revealed. A new supporting cast of potential killers and victims introduced, the legacy characters are also drawn back to town for the grisly events. 

I have had a pretty interesting relationship with the Scream series, myself- as a fan of the slasher genre, the Scream series always sort of worked as a comedy horror more so than a general straight fright film. The "killer" was always pretty damned obvious, while everyone around me were losing their collective minds about the twists and turns of the pot. This film also has a lot of twists and turns, leading me to fully believe that one of the red herrings is responsible- 

BUT- when the big reveal does make itself known- there is virtually nothing that really makes sense within the plot or direction of the film that would follow through with it. It's so out of left field that it only works as a twist because nothing supports it. They retcon quite a bit of the film in order to shoe-horn the ending, linking it to the meta-commentary of film in the broader scope, but they forget the biggest point of a "reveal" in the process- it HAS to show some degree of consistency, and this one doesn't really do that. 

So, while the film is fun and consistent with it's meta-commentary- it ultimately fails to exist outside the line of what it's trying to say about modern horror films.

7 out of 10, strong recommend. 

 BELLE (2021) (U.S. Release in 2022)

Visually stunning- like so many reviews have already said, but also an emotional exploration of depression, abuse, neglect, and the dubious comforts of a virtual "reality"- a future MMORPG that allows the user to enter a VR that utilizes their own bio-metrics to create a virtual avatar. This Japanese animated feature film was originally called Ryū to Sobakasu no Hime (The Dragon and the Freckled Princess). It premiered at the previous year's Cannes where it received a 15 minute standing ovation from an appreciative audience.

A young woman named "Suzu" is a high school loner, shy, awkward, and coping with a severe depression after her mother's untimely demise. She enters the world at the behest of her friend and creates a persona that draws almost immediate attention with her music and singing. Her fame comes to a staggering halt after an encounter with "The Dragon", a ferocious loner known for combat games. 

The movie delves into the deep mystery of discovering the identity of the Dragon and his motives.

This is a solid 8.5 out of 10 and is nearly perfect, with unexpected twists and turns. It unwraps in a way that plays with audience expectations, but also openly defies many of those expectations in surprising ways.