NOPE (2022)
NOPE (2022)
Jordan Peele in my eyes is slowly becoming the master of the new modern horror era. Most will likely already have seen his first outing in 2017’s wildly popular GET OUT. Peele really showcased to us just what he was all about and not just how easily he could get into our heads, but completely unsettle us too. In his latest outing, he does much the same, only he ticks almost all of my boxes while doing so.
From what the film tells us, this is very much an examining of the human fixation on spectacle, or more specifically dark spectacle. Why are we so fascinated by things the horrify us? Why do we always have to look? What is it about our curiosity that makes us want to take that extra step even if we aren’t sure how it will turn out for us? Though I don’t feel the movie really answers the question it’s asking, it poses the question in a very sinister fashion.
From minute one, that question is posed. We are greeted by a grisly massacre on the set of a family sitcom, hardly the sort of place we would expect to see such a scene, a sharp contrast that really stands out to me. Worse than this however, is finding out that the perpetrator of this assault is a manic and bloodied chimpanzee. From the moment Gordy strolls quite calmly onto the scene, I felt a lump in my throat. Though clothed to appear as human as possible to a live tv audience, his behaviour is anything but, another contrast that fits the scene so well. Bloodied and passive now, Gordy sits to examine his works, an eerie stillness settles over him. That stillness is cut short in an alarmingly sudden fashion when Gordy appears to make chilling eye contact with whoever is watching him from behind the camera, someone who avoided his wrath. Peele cuts this clip short at the moment of that chilling eye contact. And therein lies the point, despite the clear horror of a scene like this, we are frustrated by the sharp cut, we want to know what happened, we want to see it all, and why?
Gordy, as it turns out is not the main antagonist of this story, but he might be the most shocking, and scarier to us still, because unlike the Jean Jacket, Gordy exists, and perhaps that’s what makes this so unnerving.
NOPE really impressed me for a number of reasons. I find the immediate setting of the movie very unsettling, especially in the evening time. It harkens back to areas of America that are supposedly famous for extra terrestrial activity, places like the Roswell Landings and The Black Mail Box, that’s what this arid gulch in California says to me. Peele’s choice of landscape partnered with his deeply unsettling sound design and filming style really make for a feast of the senses.
Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer are undeniable on screen together. Kaluuya’s dry realism really helps to ground Palmers enthusiasm in a very interesting balance that allows the movie to lean into a factor I really appreciated about GET OUT. Characters making logical decisions in the face of immediate danger. NOPE is literally the title, but ‘NOPE’ is also what we think when we spy something that unsettles us, the cast do exactly the same thing, a refreshing flash of humour and realism amongst the chaos.
Another worthy mention goes to The Walking Dead’s Steven Yeun who portrays childhood trauma in his adulthood in an astutely telling way. Without ever explaining what he witnessed at the hands of Gordy the chimp, his reluctance to relive the gory details of the story, and instead build a sense of awe or hype around the matter really emphasise the impact of this horrible incident on him. His obsession for spectacle is clearly something that he has carried into his later life having failed to move on from what he saw as a child.
The existential foreboding of NOPE reminds me of that same unease I had for M. Knight Shyamalan’s Signs (2002) and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005). The sound on display here adds to the foreboding in such a way as to have me wince inside just a little, fantastic. The ominous wailing that can be heard echoing through the valley when the Jean Jacket is near, and made worse when you know what that sound means. The coarse thumps and sickening squelch of Gordy’s fists as he lands blows on the helpless cast of the family sitcom during his rampage. Our fear of what we can’t see really is far beyond that of what we actually can.
On a sidenote, Jordan Peele somehow manages to include two of the coolest voices in cinema in the same movie in Michael Wincott and Keith David, so huge props for that.
If you enjoyed NOPE even half as much as I did, I’m certain you’ll be unnerved by single solitary clouds for a good while afterwards.
