9 Best 2022 Horror Performances

Jenna Ortega’s true breakout has been in 2022 horror films. Though neither Scream (2022) nor X had Ortega in the lead role, she outshone every actor in both movies (other than Mia Goth).

In Scream, Ortega played Tara Carpenter, the younger sister of the film’s main protagonist and the only opening scene victim in the franchise to survive their interaction with Ghostface. Ortega’s small size and stature made it hard to believe she would last long against one of the genre’s most popular villains, but she held her own and was extremely believable in the victim-turned-fighter role.

In Ti West’s X, Ortega played Lorraine, the curious, quiet-as-a-church-mouse sound girl. While dealing with Pearl and Howard, she belted out horrific screams that would make Marilyn Burns applaud her.

RELATED: REVIEW: ‘X’ IS A RAUNCHY REMINDER OF ’70S SLASHERDOM

Grief is a tough emotion to portray on-screen. In a genre that’s produced some truly haunting performances of grief in the last few years (Hereditary, Midsommar, The Night House), bringing your own style is an even tougher task. Jessie Buckley did this flawlessly in Alex Garland’s Men, as she portrayed a young woman seeking isolation and relaxation after the suicide of her husband.

Her anxiety-filled, shortness of breath way of processing her grief is heartbreaking, and anyone who’s lost someone in such a horrific way is right there feeling it next to her. Buckley gives one of the few horror performances of the year that I think is worthy of an Oscar nomination.

Maika Monroe broke out onto the scene in 2014 with her excellent performances in It Follows and Adam Wingard’s The Guest. It was no surprise to see her deliver a near-perfect portrayal of paranoia and fear in Chloe Okuno’s debut film, Watcher.

In this film, Monroe plays Julie, a woman who moves to Bucharest with her husband. While he’s at work at all hours of the day and night, she’s being watched by an unknown stalker. Monroe is simply fantastic in this movie, and we hope it leads to bigger things in the future.

Ralph Fiennes needs no introduction as a great actor. After all, he was chosen to be one of the most famous pop culture villains of all time in Harry Potter’s Voldemort.

In The Menu, Fiennes plays the psychotic, attentive, and devious Chef Slowick. He teeters between terrifying and hilarious, taking his hellish version of Chef Gordon Ramsey to the next level.

RELATED:‘THE MENU’ REVIEW: A DELICIOUSLY INTENSE THRILLER THAT WILL APPEASE YOUR HORROR CRAVING

Though I don’t think either Kaluuya or Palmer blew the audience away with their individual performances in Nope, the duo’s chemistry and ability to find balance in each other’s styles was incredible.

Kaluuya’s soft-spoken, reserved personality as OJ counteracted Palmer’s boisterous, hilarious portrayal of Emerald. Jordan Peele’s way of showing how close siblings can be, yet how different their personalities can turn out, was simply brilliant.

Like Jenna Ortega, 2022 seemed to shine a light on Daisy Edgar-Jones, and it started with Hulu’s Fresh, where she played opposite Sebastian Stan in a cannibalistic-style abduction film. Where Stan brilliantly played a charming, creepy serial killer, a side to him we’d yet to see on his acting resume, Edgar-Jones knocked it out of the park in the survivor role, doing everything she could to stay alive.

She essentially had to play two roles in this film: the survivor who must find a way out and the understanding girlfriend who must keep her captor from finishing the job. Fresh was easily one of the 2022 horror films, and these two were the reason for it.

In one of the biggest surprises of 2022, the prequel to Predator held a fantastic performance from Amber Midthunder as the Comanche warrior, Naru.

Going toe-to-toe with one of the cinema’s biggest baddies is no small task, and Midthunder brought a strong, determined badass, and heroic woman to the screen. She wasn’t just an action star, either. She brought a sense of longing for acceptance and the grief of her fallen tribe members to her character’s personality.

Though I wasn’t the biggest fan of the film, no one can deny what an incredible job Sosie Bacon did in her role as Dr. Rose Cotter. Like Jessie Buckley in Men, Bacon’s character had an extremely traumatic past. However, unlike Buckley’s portrayal, Bacon used the trauma to completely bury her character in her work and hide the emotions away as deeply as possible, only to emotionally explode at the worst possible times.

It showed a way that people passively deal with grief and trauma that isn’t seen as much in movies but is still very real and just as hard to portray as believable. Sosie Bacon really brought it in this one.

Without a doubt, Mia Goth gave the best and most memorable performances of any 2022 horror film. Not only did she essentially play two separate leading roles in X, but she came back in the same year in a completely different style and delivered an Earth-shattering performance in Pearl.

You can physically see Goth’s mind breaking from her traumatic past as she gives an almost nine-minute-long, completely heartbreaking monologue in Pearl. Her portrayal is so good that, at times, you begin to understand (and be fine with) her being a complete psychopath. If anyone from this playing field deserves an Oscar win for their horror acting, it’s Mia Goth.