Some of cinema’s most legendarily terrifying moments come from the unlikeliest of places. Whether you were inflicted with lasting trauma from a childhood favorite like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, or were scarred as an adult by that infamous Trainspotting baby, there’s a decent chance that something from outside the horror genre has given you the heebie-jeebies in the past.
For whatever reason, this was a big trend in 2022, with both film and TV offering unexpected frights. To prove just how ubiquitous it was, we’ve compiled the following list of notable examples.
It should go without saying, but there are huge spoilers ahead. Without further ado, here are the year’s scariest moments from non-horror media.
Moon Knight – Tomb Raiding
Ever since Rick O’Connell proved that mummies could be gunned down by the dozen with relative ease, the Egyptian boogeymen have been unfairly side-lined in horror. Once upon a time, they were considered genre heavyweights — rivalling big guns like Dracula, Frankenstein and The Wolfman— yet those glory days are long behind them. Now, they’re all washed up and if you do see them popping up in anything, it’s likely to be as nondescript cannon fodder.
Fortunately, episode 4 of Moon Knight gave us a much-needed reminder of how scary mummies can be when they’re taken seriously. As its title suggests, the vast majority of “The Tomb” takes place within a subterranean network of catacombs, where the various labyrinthine passageways are patrolled by a group of undead priests.
Divorced of context, this could sound like the perfect set-up for a fun action romp (ideally suited to Brendan Fraser’s goofy brand of swashbuckling). Yet what we get instead, is far more traumatic.
Before the zombified husks even show up, you’re already on edge thanks to the alarming décor of their sacrificial chamber. They obviously don’t take much pride in their home, as the room is cluttered with snake skins, discarded spinal columns and leftover viscera from the last time they had visitors.
On that note, Steven and Layla happen to arrive here at the most inopportune moment, getting themselves trapped in the chamber just as one of the priests is returning (body in tow). Cowering behind an altar, they are forced to endure a gruesome spectacle as the mummy embalms its victim alive: dissecting him, harvesting his organs and then placing them inside canopic jars.
The grisly details are mostly left up to your imagination, but the evocative audio and brief glimpses of gore are enough to turn anyone’s stomach. Not bad for a Disney Plus show!
Avatar: The Way of Water – Ocean Attack
In many respects, Avatar: The Way of Water feels like a well-earned victory lap for James Cameron. Indulgent in the best possible sense of the word, it sees the self-proclaimed “King of the World” exploring his thematic interests and continuing to push the envelope in terms of digital technology. All through the lens of deeply earnest storytelling that is stretched out over a luxurious 190 minutes.
The director even manages to find time for a little career retrospection, with numerous call-backs to his prior works. There’s a feral adoptee who bears more than a passing resemblance to Newt, an early shot of fiery destruction mirrors Sarah Conner’s judgement day prophecy and, during the ship-sinking climax, you half expect the Na’vi to run across a young Leonardo DiCaprio.
While Aliens, T2 and Titanic make up the pantheon of Cameron’s greatest hits, you may be surprised to learn that there’s even a hint of Piranha II: The Spawning here. Channelling that B-movie’s aquatic horror, the undersea confrontation between Lo’ak and a Pandoran Akula is highly intense.
Having been left adrift in the leviathan’s territory (with no means of quickly returning to shore), Lo’ak takes refuge in a submerged coral formation. Knowing all too well that he cannot hold his breath down there forever, but also that the predator is still lurking nearby, he’s then stuck in an unbearable predicament. He must inevitably abandon his shelter and resurface; the only question is how long can he afford to wait.
It’s an excruciating sequence that unfolds without dialogue or much audio of any kind, to the point where you can hear a pin drop in the theatre. Speaking of which, this is one moment that definitely benefits from the cinemagoing experience, as the Akula’s enormous frame dominates the IMAX screen, and the immersive 3D effects make you feel as though you are right in the middle of the action.
Doctor Strange – Hail to the King, Baby!
Before handing over directorial duties to Sam Raimi, Doctor Strange 2’s original custodian, Scott Derrickson, hyped the sequel up as the MCU’s first ever balls-to-the-wall horror entry. Carrying the eminently schlocky subtitle “In the Multiverse of Madness”, it was shaping up to be a rather enjoyable ride as well.
Alas, that tantalizing promise was gradually watered down over the following months, with studio head Kevin Feige clarifying that the film would be a strictly PG-13 affair, before then backpedalling even further by likening it to Gremlins and The Temple of Doom (i.e., kid-friendly blockbusters with a slightly darker edge). Dashing any residual hope that MoM would be the anarchic wildcard initially pitched, Derrickson then jumped ship, citing creative differences as the reason for his premature departure.
Given the turbulent development, many assumed that Derrickson’s replacement would be an unremarkable gun-for-hire. Somebody content to follow orders and stick to the beaten path. Instead, we got the singular voice of Sam Raimi.
Although he’s not quite in full Evil Dead mode, he does let his splatter roots shine through in occasional bursts, just as he did with the Spider-Man trilogy. There’s a malevolent witch, an eldritch tome of black magic, a graphic eye gouging at one point and a surprisingly brutal head implosion.
Best of all is the grand finale, in which the sorcerer supreme puppeteers a lifeless doppelganger from across the multiverse. The initial resurrection of this glorious Zombie Strange is enough to send gorehounds into a frenzy, but once he starts battling a horde of cackling wraiths — many of whom are voiced by Raimi alumni and ex-deadites — then the vibe becomes downright euphoric.
Special mention must go to real-life wizard Barrie Gower, whose immaculate prosthetics brought the rotting ghoul (as well as Vecna from the latest season of Stranger Things) to the screen. It could have easily been accomplished with CGI, yet the makeup lends it a tactile quality that stands out from the usual Marvel aesthetic.
The Northman – Amleth’s Spooky Side Quest
A sweeping historical epic, The Northman represents a significant change of pace for director Robert Eggers. While his oeuvre has always been steeped in obsessive period detail and real-world folklore, his other films were predominately quieter, intimate chillers. A far cry from the big-budget sieges and volcanic set pieces we’re treated to here.
That being said, the auteur hasn’t completely turned his back on horror, as The Northman is still replete with Eggers’ trademark surrealism and disquieting imagery. Case in point: Amleth’s mid-movie fetch quest to retrieve a fabled sword from the clutches of a mythical Draugr (think of a White Walker from Game of Thrones and you’re in the right ballpark).
Confident that looting this corpse will be a straightforward task, Amleth infiltrates a burial mound and tries to pry the blade from its owner’s cold dead hands. Of course, this proves to be easier said than done and the attempted theft stirs the warrior from its ancient slumber.
What follows is a heart-pounding duel between mortal man and incensed revenant. One in which the tiniest of errors could spell doom for our hero. The high stakes are established almost immediately, when the towering Draugr obliterates Amleth’s shield with a lone strike. From thereon out, you’d be forgiven for watching the rest of the fight through your fingers.
It’s like the cinematic equivalent of one of those ultra-punishing Dark Souls bosses, where your foe has a chunky health bar, unpredictable move set and devastating attack damage. Amleth can’t even get a single hit in because he’s too busy dodging the flurry of killing blows that are unleashed by his opponent.
Not only is it a masterfully choreographed scene (making you wince with every close shave) but the otherworldly lighting and atmospheric music imbue it with a nightmarish feel too. It’s an unusual marriage of unadulterated terror and beautiful artistry that only Eggers could pull off.
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power – Orc in the House
Those with a background in horror have previously flourished when adapting The Lord of the Rings, with Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and The House That Freddy Built (New Line Cinema) all walking away from their celebrated trilogy as the proud recipients of Oscars.
Looking to continue that tradition, J.A. Bayona helmed two episodes of Amazon’s cumbersomely titled The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power. And, much like Jackson before him, The Orphanage director managed to sneak a few illicit scares into his interpretation of Middle Earth.
His smartest move was to turn the orcs, which were hitherto portrayed as teeming hordes of grunt soldiers, into genuinely frightening antagonists. While the prospect of facing a heaving army of Uruks was certainly daunting in The Two Towers, here just one of them on its own is enough to pose a threat.
Nowhere is this better showcased than in the back half of episode 2 (“Adrift”), where Bronwyn is trying to elude detection from an Orc scout that has tunnelled its way into her home. Intent on milking the scene for every last droplet of tension, Bayona takes his sweet time building up to her discovery, with techniques that wouldn’t feel out of place in a slasher flick.
Indeed, you can’t help but draw parallels between Bronwyn and Laurie Strode as the former locks herself in a cupboard and attempts to stifle tears while her stalker combs the area. They also do a fantastic job of putting you right in the character’s shoes, via the deft use of shallow depth of field and obstructed POV shots. These visual impediments prevent you from being able to accurately track the orc’s whereabouts, and so you have to listen out for its ghastly wheezing noises in order to pinpoint its location.
Not to mention, when we are shown partial glimpses of the monster it looks positively repulsive, with a flickering tongue, retracted lips, elongated nails and gnashing teeth. It’s a face only a mother could love, which might explain why half of it is covered up by an improvised mask fashioned from a deer skull.
Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio – A Not-So Wonderful Afterlife
We had a proper Armageddon/Deep Impact situation this year, when not two but three Pinocchio films were released, only one of which was worth your time.
While the Russian version enlisted the vocal talents of Pauly Shore to predictably risible effect — becoming a laughingstock meme after one trailer— Robert Zemeckis’ stab didn’t fair much better. Similar to the other Disney live-action remakes, it was a totally pointless cash grab that barely deviated from its source material. Worse still, it made the fatal error of trying to replicate animated character designs in realistic terms, resulting in a macabre end product that appeared to have been excavated from the deepest recesses of the uncanny valley.
At least the Guillermo del Toro joint was intentionally creepy. In addition to showing the horrors of war and the insidiousness of fascism, the movie’s outlook on the afterlife is also rather morbid. Bereft of cheer, bathed in depressing blue hues, and populated by weird rabbit creatures (with their rib cages exposed), it’s not exactly a traditional depiction of paradise.
As it turns out, it’s not even the final destination but more like a temporary waiting room for the deceased, reserved for whenever there is a clerical error. You see, Pinocchio is unable to pass on fully to the other side, because our little wooden boy was never alive to begin with.
This is all explained to him by the Angel of Death itself (ethereally voiced by Tilda Swinton), who informs Pinocchio that he’s doomed to everlasting life and cannot be granted permanent rest. He’s naturally quite pleased to learn of this immortality at first, until it dawns on him that he will outlast everyone that he loves and never be a “real boy”.
As if that wasn’t upsetting enough, there’s also the visual aspect of the scene to consider. The Angel might be portrayed as a compassionate entity, but it’s still a freaky thing to behold, on account of its unmistakably Del Toro design. Boasting a death mask, protruding horns, a pronged snakelike tail and a body that is decorated with eyes (akin to the Greek God Argus), it’s suitably alien and hardly a comforting presence for Pinocchio.
Beast – Law of the Jungle
This entry may be a little contentious, given that the animal attack subgenre has evident horror ancestry. Indeed, there’s a lineage here that’s plain for anyone to see, tracing way back to silver-screen classics like The Birds, Cujo and Jaws (as well as to the latter’s many undignified knock-offs).
For the most part, however, Beast more strongly evokes the feel of a survival-adventure film, where it stands in good company alongside this year’s vertiginous Fall. After all, it’s not too fixated on characters being viciously mauled to shreds, nor does it ever try to get under your skin in a way that truly disturbs.
It’s got far more in common with things like The Grey, The Edge and especially The Ghost and the Darkness, seeing as it’s really about man conquering nature and resourcefully adapting to extreme circumstances. Granted, the bloodthirsty lion might be an intimidating focal point for this, but it’s not meant to give you sleepless nights.
That being said, director Baltasar Kormákur knows how to conjure up suspense when the need arises. He’s particularly fond of letting set-pieces unfold in agonisingly long, unbroken shots, putting you in the heat of the moment and denying you even the briefest of cutaways as a reprieve.
A terrific example of this is the sequence in which Idris Elba’s Nate embarks on a moonlight trek through crocodile-infested wetlands, in search of the keys to a prospective getaway vehicle. Our muscles clenched in dread for a solid 5 minutes, we are with him every trepidatious step of the way, as he has narrow escape after narrow escape.
Things get off to a dismaying start when he nearly alerts the big cat by stumbling into an obnoxiously loud wooden totem, and it only gets worse from there. Nate receives an ill-timed radio transmission that almost gives away his position, is literally made to hide right under his pursuer’s nose, and eventually climbs a tree for safety, only to realise that it is home to a venomous snake.
After enduring these relentless close calls, you are liable to be sweating just as much as the hapless safarist himself.
The Boys: Season 3 – The Only Man in the Sky
Homelander has always been a fascinating nemesis for The Boys, driven by an unstable (and often contradictory) mix of self-loathing, vanity, pettiness, sexual perversion, bigotry and all round staggering levels of neediness.
Throughout Amazon Prime’s series, this cocktail of unhealthy personality defects triggers a number of volatile outbursts and erratic mood swings on his part. Which is precisely what makes the all-American supe’ so damn compelling, as even the tiniest provocation or imagined slight can set him off.
Prior to Season 3, he was nominally kept in line by the corporate overlords at Vought International, who controlled his public image and exploited his deep-set insecurities. You see, despite holding the general populace in utter contempt, Homelander desperately craves their adulation and is paranoid that his opinion poll ratings will nosedive if people discover his true nature. As such, he’ll do anything to maintain the outward-facing, squeaky clean persona that Vought has manufactured for him.
That is until his one shoulder-to-cry-on, Stormfront, euthanizes herself on his birthday. Taking the news extremely badly, Homelander proceeds to torture a young woman named Chelsea whom he was originally meant to be talking down from suicide.
His heart clearly isn’t in this to begin with, as he apathetically rattles off a spiel about the sanctity of life, delivering it with all the enthusiasm of an underpaid call centre employee. Yet once he decides to let his mask fully slip off, he reveals just how sadistic he can be when no one is watching.
Ranting megalomaniacally about how persecuted he is and how only he can understand the tribulations of Christ, he arrives at the conclusion that Chelsea should end her life after all. When she doesn’t take to his suggestion, he then adopts a more overtly threatening manner, demanding that she jump otherwise he’ll make her wish that she had.
When Chelsea subsequently calls out for divine intervention, Homelander’s misanthropic response chills us to the bone: “No God. The only man in the sky is me.” It’s a legitimately harrowing scene, impeccably scripted and performed with spiteful menace by The Boys’ MVP, Antony Starr.
Jurassic World: Dominion – Introducing the Therizinosaurus
It used to be that Dinosaurs were enough to inspire a sense of awe in moviegoers, yet 30 years down the line they seem to have somehow become played out and ironically quite toothless. The blame for this can largely be ascribed to the weaker Jurassic instalments, which (bar a few notable exceptions) haven’t even tried to make their prehistoric beasties feel in any way dangerous.
It’s like the filmmakers don’t have faith in their star attractions anymore and so have relegated them to mere set-dressing. Meanwhile, they bafflingly shift the narrative focus over to convoluted globetrotting shenanigans, corporate espionage plots, pyroclastic disasters and (of all fucking things) locust plagues.
It’s a shame really because, when the Jurassic World movies remember that they’re supposed to be about dinosaurs, they can still get the blood pumping. For all its faults, 2022’s Dominion actually contains some of the finest evidence of this, thanks to its sublime depiction of the Therizinosaurus.
Since JP3, every Jurassic sequel has presented us with a new would-be icon, but they’re mostly interchangeable carnivores and pale in comparison to the T-Rex. This one, however, stands out from the crowd with its distinctive appearance and more aggressive behavioural traits.
Bearing a name that translates to “Scythe Lizard”, the first thing you will notice about this imposing giant is that it has a prodigious set of claws right at the end of its forearms. The power of which is capably demonstrated early on, when the Therizi uses them to casually swat away a fully grown deer.
Those razor-sharp talons aren’t the dino’s only fearsome attribute though, as its pupils are also obfuscated by cataracts, rendering them completely white (like a blood-frenzied shark’s). Suffice it to say, it’s pretty terrifying.
The result is a much creepier dinosaur than we’re used to seeing in these flicks, resembling an overgrown cassowary bird. Like its modern-day relative, the Therizinosaurus is a fiercely territorial herbivore and will not hesitate to attack any intruders that encroach upon its habitat.
As a planteater, the notion that it will kill, not for sustenance but out of sheer hostility, makes it way more memorable than the bland Giganotosaurus. In fact, the Therizinosaurus probably ought to have been the main villain of the entire movie, because its fleeting appearance here is an absolute highlight.
The Batman – Driving Under the Influence
Virtually any moment featuring Paul Dano’s Riddler would be a worthy inclusion on our list. Taking a leaf out of the Zodiac’s book, this unhinged vigilante litters his crime scenes with taunting messages for the authorities, teases what he’s planning via elaborate cyphers, and even dons similar attire to the notorious serial killer when he’s out on the prowl.
The military surplus mask he wears is particularly sinister, shrouding all empathetic features, other than the eyes which are themselves concealed by thick-rimmed glasses. There’s nothing recognisably human for you to latch onto, as he’s taken the scare tactics of his idol Batman (with whom he is deludedly convinced he has kinship) a little too much to heart.
The Riddler is an unsettling presence in any context, whether he’s committing an act of wanton violence or just standing ominously in the background of a shot. Funnily enough though, his most impactful scene is one that deliberately withholds a good look at him.
Having been selected as the Riddler’s next target, an inebriated Gil Colson (Gotham’s corrupt District Attorney and hopeless drug addict) clambers into the front seat of his car. It’s always a mistake to get behind the wheel if you’re not sober but in this case, the imminent danger isn’t posed by a high-speed collision.
Rather, Gil’s delayed reactions stop him from being able to put up a fight with the person currently hiding in his backseat. For a PG-13 movie, the ensuing attack is surprisingly traumatic, bringing to mind a similar sequence from Matt Reeves’ earlier work in Let Me In.
Michael Giacchino’s eerie score — which puts a haunting spin on Schubert’s Ave Maria — brilliantly sets the tone early on. However, once Gil drunkenly enters the car and discovers that his headrest has been removed (thus providing his assailant with an opportunity to strike from behind), subtly goes out the window and things sharply escalate.
A lot of it is hard to make out from a visual perspective, on account of the blurred cinematography, dim lighting and cutaways, but it’s that sense of ambiguity that makes the whole ordeal so bloody unnerving. Without coherent images, you’re instead forced to rely on the distressing audio mix to figure out what’s going on.
The cacophonous roar of an overground train is layered atop the music and, as the Riddler violently subdues his victim, we hear the sounds of struggle, the ripping of duct tape and heavy breathing. Then, once Gill has been overpowered, Riddler fastens a mysterious beeping device to the sot’s neck, while portentously urging him to “Hold Still”.
Again, the fact that we’re not yet privy to what’s happening and can only piece it together through these vague audio clues is really disconcerting. One thing we know for sure: Gil should have hailed a taxi.
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