It’s a new year, and that means that while Jason Voorhees is setting a killcount goal for 2022 and Michael Myers is joining the gym, I’m getting excited for what’s on the 2022 horror docket.
First off, books! Did you love My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones? If so, you’ll be delighted to hear that in August 2022, the sequel (which is the next book in a planned trilogy!) is coming out. Don’t Fear the Reaper lands Jade Daniels back in Proofrock—and the middle of a slasher (again).
Were you a Spiderwick kid? Even if you weren’t, Holly Black has an adult horror novel called Book of Night coming out in May that deserves your attention. My inner middle schooler is as excited as my current twenty-something self.
I’m a big Paul Tremblay fan, so I’m psyched for The Pallbearers’ Club. Even if you don’t know the guy, what a title. Another favorite of mine, Catriona Ward, author of the excellent The Last House on Needless Street, has another psychological horror novel coming out: Sundial.
As for new authors I want to try, The Wakening by JG Faherty has both a regular priest and a defrocked one going demon-hunting in rural NY, Jawbone by Mónica Ojeda has a mysterious friend breakup and a teacher taking a student hostage, and How To Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix reminds me of the podcast Haunted House Flippers, so I am in.
A shipment from Maine containing Gwendy’s Final Task by Stephen King and Richard Chizmar will make it to a bookstore near you on February 15th (it’s the sequel to Gwendy’s Button Box). King’s work is also getting some adaptions—we’ve got new ‘Salem’s Lot and Firestarter movies, as well as a remake of The Mist—this time, a series.
And on the subject of films: Scream (the fifth installment)! Expect a review (and a deep-dive of the whole series, which is mercifully shorter than the other franchises I’ve binged) next month!
Ghostface isn’t the only guy from the pantheon who we’ll be seeing: Halloween Ends, which is the last film in the latest reboot timeline, brings back Michael Myers for what might be his final film (somehow, I don’t believe it). Leatherface also makes an appearance in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (sequel, not a reboot), and we’ve got a Hellraiser reboot too. Plus our favorite Orphan is getting a prequel called Esther.
Aside from the big franchises, I have my eye on a few releases: Adrift (GHOST SHIP GHOST SHIP GHOST SHIP), I Killed Someone (“I might be the last living person and WHAT IS GOING ON?!” is such a good trope), Don’t Worry Darling (as if being a housewife in the 1950s doesn’t sound horrific enough, this movie manages to turn it darker), and Dark Harvest is Midwest horror, which is dope as heck.
For more intel, here’s a great imdb list.
Netflix horror—a mixed bag if I ever saw one. Here’s some stuff with the potential to be cool:
- The second season of Alice in Borderland
- The Midnight Club because even though I don’t usually do well with sad stuff (and this is a group of terminally ill teens telling scary stories), Mike Flanagan rarely disappoints when he makes a horror series
All horror fans should keep an eye on A24 studios, so here’s the 2022 lineup I’m most excited for:
- The Tragedy of Macbeth (my fave Shakespeare play and I am HYPED)
- Bodies Bodies Bodies (no confirmed release date, but it looks like it’ll be a good ol’fashioned slasher, and it’s in post, so fingers crossed we’ll see it in the next year)
And that’s all I got…for now. As always, ‘tis but a scratch (of the surface anyway), so keep your eyes peeled for scary happenings in the new year—and congrats on surviving 2021.
Unless you’re reading this as a zombie or a ghost. In which case…congrats anyway. I’m guessing the past few years have been pretty chaotic on other planes of existence too.