Welcome back to the inaugural Scare Value Awards. Essentially, our version of a 2022 Horror Movie Awards. Today we will award some more traditional awards. We’ll crown Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Screenplay, Best Director and name the Best Picture of 2022.
We will also unveil which classic movie will join John Carpenter’s Halloween in the inaugural class of the Scare Value Hall of Fame. Only the greatest, most important or most influential movies in horror history will be a part of this exclusive club.
You can check out Part 1 of our awards here. We crowned the Best Final Girl, Best Killer, Best Twist, Best Gore Effects and Best Kill. It’s been a great year for horror…as evidenced by the wide variety of nominations and winners.
Let’s jump right into it.
2022 Scare Value Awards
Best Screenplay
You can’t make a great movie out of a bad screenplay. All of the nominees in this category served as the backbone of great movies. The nominees for Best Screenplay are…
Adam Leader for Feed Me
Seth Reiss and Will Tracy for The Menu
James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick for Scream
Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes for Sissy
Conor Boru and Ed Hartland for When the Screaming Starts
All five nominees are bitingly clever screenplays. They also happen to skew towards horror comedy. That’s not a fluke…marrying horror and comedy can be a difficult thing to pull off. Sissy, Scream and The Menu all take aim to satire various targets. Feed Me adds a surprising level of depth to the topic of grief. When the Screaming Starts is flat out hilarious.
All five screenplays are award worthy…but the three that immediately stood out were Sissy, The Menu and Feed Me. They’re all doing something darker and sadder than expected at first blush. They handle that extra layer with such ease that their effects sneak up on you. Feed Me has some very moving things to say about grief. Sissy has a lot to say about the phoniness of internet personalities. The Menu struck the most consistent wit and biting tone and found many different ways to be funny.
The Scary Goes To…
Seth Reiss and Will Tracy – The Menu
The Menu will be available to stream on HBO Max January 3, 2023
Best Director
It’s long been true that horror movies are the place to find the hottest up and coming directors. The genre allows imaginative works and are often the only place for a talented director to get a green light. The nominees for Best Director are…
Nyla Innuksuk for Slash/Back
Jordan Peele for Nope
Dan Trachtenberg for Prey
Ti West for Pearl
Eskil Vogt for The Innocents
Ti West avoids competing with himself this year as his stronger visual statement makes the shortlist. Nyla Innuksuk elevated every frame of the gorgeous Slash/Back and is a director to watch moving forward. Eskil Vogt deftly handles difficult subject matter and presents moments you won’t shake off easily. Dan Trachtenberg crafted a gorgeous blockbuster that maintains the feel of a character study. Jordan Peele raised his visual craft to another level providing a spectacle you couldn’t look away from.
Picking a winner in this category boiled down to which director was able to display their vision to the fullest. Innuksuk does remarkable things with an inexperienced cast and a beautiful setting. Trachtenberg did something that felt impossible and made a Predator movie that stands with the series best. Peele’s Nope is his most confident work yet…he gets every moment he wants captured exactly as he intended. Vogt leads child actors through a difficult and emotional horror journey. Ti West does the smartest thing he can do with Pearl…point the camera at Mia Goth and let her tell the story.
The Scary Goes To…
Jordan Peele – Nope
Nope is streaming on Peacock
Best Actor
Onto the acting awards. Whether leading an ensemble or dominating a small cast…this year’s Best Actor nominees left a lasting impression on viewers. The nominees for Best Actor are…
David Arquette as Dewey Riley in Scream
Javier Botet as Javi in Amigo
Ralph Fiennes as Julian Slowik in The Menu
Neal Ward as Lionel Flack in Feed Me
Joseph Winter as Shawn Ruddy in Deadstream
Neal Ward and Javier Botet spent most of their films as part of a two man play. Botet delivers a fearless physical and mostly silent performance. Ward creates a character that you can’t get enough of. Joseph Winter takes it a step further and spends most of his movie talking to himself. He manages to be funny and walk the line between intentionally and actually annoying. Ralph Fiennes gives one of his best performances as a chef who has reached the end of his rope. David Arquette gives his career best performance in his fifth, and final, go around as the beloved Dewey Riley.
While Arquette is perfect as an older Dewey, and Winter carries a fun ride with impressive ease…this category quickly came down to three performances that dominated their films. Fiennes is in complete control of The Menu. Botet is silently heartbreaking in Amigo. Ward gives us something so fresh that we don’t even know what we’re supposed to do with it for most of Feed Me. This was a three-way race that was very difficult to tie break.
The Scary Goes To…
Neal Ward – Feed Me
Feed Me is available for rent or purchase from Amazon
Best Actress
2022 was one of the best years this category has ever seen. Consider some of the performances that didn’t crack the top 5…many would have won this award in another year. The nominees for Best Actress are…
Anna Cobb as Casey in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair
Aisha Dee as Cecilia in Sissy
Mia Goth as Pearl in Pearl
Rebecca Hall as Margaret in Resurrection
Maika Monroe as Julia in Watcher
Anna Cobb’s first film performance doesn’t have the benefit of playing off of another actor. She single handedly carries We’re All Going to the World’s Fair. Aisha Dee takes Cecilia from her phony, together persona to the rapidly spiraling into madness Sissy with a frantic and fun performance. Mia Goth’s long one take monologue is the stuff of legend. Rebecca Hall has a memorable monologue of her own as Margaret slowly unravels with Hall’s fearless physical performance. Maika Monroe plays the isolated, frightened and discarded Julia with an equal amount of curiosity and apprehension.
While this was a fantastic year for this category…the truth is at some point this became Mia Goth’s award to lose. Rebecca Hall gives her the best run for her money in Resurrection. Both give standout performances and carry their respective films. Goth just carries hers a little further.
The Scary Goes To…
Mia Goth – Pearl
Rent or Buy Pearl on Amazon
Best Picture
Time for the big one. Which movie from 2022’s incredible batch of films was able to combine all of the things we look for in a great horror movie? The nominees for Best Picture are…
So here we are. The nominees include two prequels, a sequel and two originals. Prey is easily the best of the Predator sequels. It may even be the best of the series. Terrifier 2 defies its predecessor’s minimalist approach to deliver the first true epic slasher film. Pearl doesn’t need X to exist to enjoy everything about its tale of a young woman trapped by her circumstances. The Innocents is the hardest watch of 2022. It forces us to confront true evil…and asks if we can forgive it when it’s committed by children. The Sadness is a non-stop ride through a unique, vicious, zombie apocalypse.
The Innocents and The Sadness are fascinating to compare. One is about something heavy…the other runs from commenting on anything in particular about its heavy situation. Both choose the correct way for themselves. Prey is the most uplifting and “standard” story of the bunch. That doesn’t prevent it from perhaps being the year’s most entertaining movie. Terrifier 2 is a statement. A statement that slasher movies don’t need to be trapped by small ideas…that the formula works in any world. Pearl tops the movie it’s prequeling by focusing on character over all. And what a character.
Hard to watch vs. Entertaining. Statement vs. Character. Mayhem vs. Message. Carnage vs. Pathos. 2022’s Best Picture Horror Movie Award was a photo finish. We went with the image most likely to be with us years from now.
The Scary Goes To…
The Innocents
The Innocents is streaming on Shudder
2022 Scare Value Hall of Fame Inductee
Each year two films will be selected to join the Scare Value Hall of Fame. These movies are the best of the bets in horror history. They can be important of influential…or just a hell of a lot of fun. Our first inductee was unveiled in Part 1 of the 2022 Sare Value Awards yesterday. Now it’s time to find out what movie will join Halloween as the inaugural class of the Scare Value Hall of Fame.
In 1968 George A. Romero gave us the film that launched a thousand franchises. There aren’t many movies that stand as more influential, in any genre, than Night of the Living Dead. This wouldn’t be Romero’s only zombie masterpiece…but it is the one whose shoulders are stood upon by everyone else. With Night of the Living Dead, Romero perfected a genre that he was inventing at the same time.
Read our full Night of the Living Dead review.
Thank you for checking out part 2 of our version of our 2022 Horror movie awards. Here’s to another great year in 2023.
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