Out of this World

Movies: Nope

General spoiler warning for this blog entry

Jordan Peele may have shot himself in the foot by setting the bar so dang high with his first film, Get Out. Get Out is such a great, culturally important, nearly *impeccable* movie that whenever a new film of his comes out, much of the conversation is about how it stacks up to his first. 

At the same time, having seen Get Out, Us, and Nope...I gotta say...the man just keeps making EXCELLENT movies! Yes, I could rank them in order of my personal favorites, but even my least favorite Peele movie is leagues above the majority of movies I watch, period.

After months of waiting with bated breath, I finally saw Nope. And, although it has a few flaws, it's a beautifully shot, genuinely scary film. There were some scenes in Nope that made me feel a visceral terror I don't often feel in horror movies. Not a "jump scare" type horror, but an Eldritch horror. 

Nope follows siblings OJ and Em Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer), who inherit their family's ranch after their father, Otis Sr. (Keith David), dies when a coin falls out of the sky and through his eye socket. The Haywood Ranch specifically trains horses for Hollywood films and apparently the financials aren't doing so hot. OJ rents out horses to Ricky "Jupe" Park (Steven Yeun), a former childhood star who now runs a ranch-themed amusement park called "Jupiter's Claim". 

Jupe has an entire subplot which at first seems disconnected to the larger plot, but upon closer inspection fits right in with the themes of the film. When Jupe was a child actor, he starred on a TV show called Gordy's Home, which was about a family that adopts a pet chimpanzee, Gordy. One day while filming an episode, the chimp who played Gordy loses control when some balloons burst on set, causing the chimp to react violently and kill/maim several cast members. Jupe was unharmed and the chimp was shot. We see a flashback to this scene and it is absolutely terrifying. 

Meanwhile, in present day, OJ sees what appears to be a UFO hiding among the clouds above the Haywood Ranch. Once Em sees the mysterious object, she insists that they invest in a bunch of high-end cameras to get "the Oprah shot" so they can make a ton of money by proving that UFOs are real.

...But it's not a UFO. Turns out, the mysterious object is no object at all...it IS the alien. And it's hungry.

In one of the best scenes of the film, Jupe hosts a special event where he plans to sacrifice a horse to the alien in front of a crowd--a crowd that includes his wife and children. Instead of simply sucking up the horse, the alien sucks up the entire crowd and we even see the people trapped in the alien's gullet, shrieking with fear. This was the primal, Eldritch horror I was talking about. 

When Em and OJ realize that they are unable to use regular cameras to capture video of the alien because electricity shuts down when the alien is near, they hire an acclaimed cinematographer, Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), who--sure enough--has a non-electrical camera. Additionally, Angel (Brandon Perea), the electronics salesman who sold them the cameras (which ended up not working) is along for the ride to try to film the alien. 

My biggest issue with Nope is that the final third of the movie drags quite a bit. Even with the excitement of these people trying to film the alien without being sucked up and eaten (OJ theorizes that if you don't look at the alien, it won't hurt you...but that's kind of hard to do when you're trying to take a picture of it), the last part of the movie feels slow and repetitive. Although I do plan to see Nope a second time in the theatre (it really does benefit from being seen on a big screen), I don't think I will rewatch it as often as I rewatch Get Out, which feels like a very "easy to rewatch" movie--the pacing is better, the acting is a little better, it's just "sharper". Nope definitely has some bloat.

What I loved about Nope was how scary it was on multiple levels. It has traditional "jump scares" that absolutely scared the shit out of everyone in the theatre, plus the "Eldritch horror" stuff. The alien itself is so utterly massive that you feel this sense of awe when the camera pans up. The being resembles a huge, terrifying sea creature--like a stingray--but in the sky. It feels so wrong. It gives me the willies just thinking about it! Plus there's the whole Gordy subplot which manages to be utterly terrifying without excessive gore. 

How does Gordy the chimp relate to Jean Jacket the alien (Em and OJ nickname the alien Jean Jacket after one of their horses growing up)? Well, Nope is about a lot of things, and one of those things is exploitation of animals for human entertainment. The Gordy incident is based on a real life incident where a chimp attacked a woman. Humans attempting to domesticate potentially violent non-human animals as pets, exploiting them for financial gain, or just generally using them is par for the course for most of human history. Peele seems to be making a statement about how Hollywood specifically exploits animals without giving those animals the proper respect they deserve. In one of the first scenes of the movie, OJ takes Lucky the horse to the set of a commercial and snobby Hollywood types ignore his warnings to give the horse space and it eventually rears up and kicks. Luckily (heh), no one is hurt--but OJ is blamed for not "controlling" the horse.

Likewise, OJ is the only person in the movie who makes any attempt to understand the alien and learn how to keep himself safe and alive in its presence. The rest of the characters--Jupe, Antlers, and Em in particular--are straight up foolish when it comes to the alien. All they care about is the money or fame to be gained and they don't even consider that the alien might fucking kill them. 

Nope is also about spectacle and how we, as a society, not only go to dangerous lengths to get that "perfect shot" or make a video that will go viral, we also turn other people's pain and tragedy into entertainment. Jupe's character is a truly interesting one. He was a child actor who experienced a life-changing tragic event first hand. Now he's basically washed up and lets people pay him money to be around memorabilia from Gordy's Home. Hollywood exploited him, too, and now he exploits his own painful memories for monetary gain. He also plans to exploit this alien being for money and fame without thinking about the deadly consequences. It's Gordy all over again.

To sum up: Nope is an ambitious, imperfect film. It's trying to squeeze a lot into one movie, and still feels overly long. But the cinematography is gorgeous, the monster is truly terrifying, and the movie just feels epic. It's also original, which given the never-ending churn of Marvel movies, remakes, reboots, etc, is something rare and special. Especially for a summer blockbuster. I definitely recommend it and am further convinced that Peele is one of the best and most original filmmakers working today.

Grade: A-