It’s no secret that 2022 was an astounding year for horror. In just 365 days, we were given unmissable horror hits such as Nope, Orphan: First Kill, Hellbender, The Innocents, Sissy, X, Barbarian, Scream (2022) and so many more. It looks like 2023 is gearing up to be an even bigger step for the niche genre as we anticipate Scream 6, Renfield, Evil Dead Rise, Beau Is Afraid, Insidious 5, The Exorcist remake, and Saw X, among others.
As we creep towards Halloween (it’s coming sooner than you think!), there’s no doubt that lines will be circling the block as moviegoers brace themselves for a truly terrifying time. But all of this buzz around 2022 and 2023 begs a very important question: Which year was the best for horror? Well, Reddit has the answers.
Kick-starting the discussion, one eager Redditor nominated 1987 as the indisputable ‘year’ of horror with a list of bona fide classics. Another honorable mention would be the sci-fi horror/thriller The Hidden, directed by Jack Sholder and also released in 1987. That’s a pretty intimidating list, but while many Redditors were in agreement with the OP, it wasn’t just 1987 that Redditors shouted out, with one arguing that 1982 was “hard to beat.”
In the year that Ozzy Osbourne ate a bat live on stage, we enjoyed some great horror flicks. As outlined above, we had hit classics like The Thing, Poltergeist, Friday the 13th: Part 3, and even Creepshow among the most favorable releases. That’s some stiff competition, particularly since the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises had become huge around this time, so fans were awaiting every new sequel with bated breath.
Once the comments had come flooding in, OP uploaded another comment to share that 1986 was a close second to 1987. In the same year as the terrifying Chornobyl Disaster of ’86, cult-classic horror movies such as Poltergeist II, Critters, Aliens, and Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives thoroughly enthralled us. It looks like ’86 was a worthy adversary for ’87 after all.
And how could we forget 2004? It seems so long ago now — almost as long as ’86 and ’87 — but that astounding year brought us Saw, The Grudge, Shaun of the Dead, and Dawn of the Dead, and so many more that we’d be here forever trying to praise. We also kinda love tossing Mel Gibson’s gory The Passion of the Christ on there as a horror movie. There’s no higher honor we could bestow on 2004 other than calling it the absolute champion of the early 2000s.
Unfortunately, no one mentioned 2022 or the later 2000s, but that’s probably because horror fans are very respectful of the classics. After all, those low-budget, low-quality movies paved the way for the golden age of horror we’re enjoying today.