By Josh Bate
2022 was full of critically acclaimed, financially successful films that garnered worldwide attention and social media buzz. However, there were a number of entertaining and well-crafted films that flew under the radar this last year. Here are some of the most under-appreciated movies of 2022.
The Estate
Two sisters attempt to win over their terminally ill, difficult-to-please aunt in hopes of becoming the beneficiaries of her wealthy estate, only to find the rest of their greedy family members have the same idea.
Confess, Fletch
After becoming the prime suspect in multiple murders, Fletch strives to prove his innocence while simultaneously searching for his fiancé’s stolen art collection.
Vengeance
A writer from New York City attempts to solve the murder of a girl he hooked up with and travels down south to investigate the circumstances of her death and discover what happened to her.
Ambulance
Decorated veteran Will Sharp, desperate for money to cover his wife’s medical bills, asks for help from his adoptive brother Danny. A charismatic career criminal, Danny instead offers him a score: the biggest bank heist in Los Angeles history: $32 million.
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Nervous about meeting the smug, wealthy friends of her rehabilitated girlfriend Sophie, timid newcomer Bee arrives late to a booze-addled, drug-fuelled hurricane party at bored David’s Georgian grey-stone manor house. As the storm rages outside, the party gets started, and the group of spoiled zoomers gathers around the host in the family mansion’s luxurious drawing room to play a compelling, find-the-killer murder mystery game with the lights off. But it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. And when one of the players ends up dead, mass hysteria takes over, and the petty, narcissistic backstabbers start to turn on each other. Now, cut off from the outside world, their lives depend on figuring out who’s behind the frantic outburst of senseless, bloody violence. However, as bitter rivalries flare up and old wounds reopen, how can David’s self-absorbed guests survive the night?
Spirit Halloween: The Movie
When a new Spirit Halloween store appears in a deserted strip mall, three middle school friends who think they’ve outgrown trick or treating make a dare to spend the night locked inside the store Halloween night. But they soon find out that the store is haunted by an angry evil spirit who has possessed the creepy animatronic characters. The kids embark on a thrilling and spooky adventure in order to survive the night and avoid becoming possessed themselves.
No Exit
A young woman breaks out of rehab and hot wires a car so she can visit her sick mother, but gets stuck with a group of people at a mountain rest stop during a blizzard. Things take a turn for the worse when the young woman discovers a kidnapped child in a car belonging to one of the people inside, putting the group in a terrifying life-or-death situation as they struggle to escape while trying to discover who among them is the kidnapper.
Kimi
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle, an agoraphobic tech worker discovers evidence of a violent crime while reviewing a data stream, and is met with resistance and bureaucracy when she tries reporting it to her company. To get involved, she realizes she must face her greatest fear by venturing out of her apartment and into the city streets, which are filled with protestors after the city council passes a law restricting the movements of the homeless population.
Mad God
The Assassin travels through a nightmare underworld of tortured souls, ruined cities and wretched monstrosities forged from the primordial horrors of the unconscious mind of Phil Tippett, the world’s preeminent stop-motion animator.
On the Line
A host takes a call, where an unknown person threatens to kill the showman’s entire family on air. To save loved ones, the radio host will have to play a survival game and the only way to win is to find out the identity of the criminal.
The Apology
Breaking Bad’s Anna Gunn stars as a mother whose daughter went missing 20 years ago and receives an unexpected visit from her brother-in-law on Christmas Eve.
When the Screaming Starts
What We Do in the Shadows meets American Psycho in this clever, witty, and disturbing mockumentary.