Nope

Following the sudden loss of his father (Keith David) in an ominous accident, OJ (Daniel Kaluuya) is saddled with the family ranch and its business of training horses for Hollywood. Fighting against the collapse of the ranch, OJ’s last shot at financial survival is rocked by his flamboyant and irresponsible sister Em (Keke Palmer). Returning to the ranch, the siblings are poised to part, and into the gulch left by their departure their father’s ranch will certainly fall. Everything changes when something not from this world appears above the ranch itself.

‘ Is there a word for a bad miracle?’

A question, casually uttered by the taciturn OJ, encapsulates Nope. The sibling duo stumble upon the signs of alien life, sparking a compulsion to capture proof to enrich themselves rather than human understanding. Nope is split across chapters which in turn rift between the present and the past. Denoted by the names of the ranch’s horses, each chapter documents the sibling’s fixation on capturing footage of the visitor, regardless of its real toll, which cuts against the immediate past of a 1990s sit-com and its abrupt and bloody end. The present predicament of the siblings is echoed by the tragic sit-com and the sickly cult of voyeuristic fans who now worship its cursed final episode. Across times, chapters and characters, Nope shows that when confronted by terror and tragedy, humanity relishes the event as strongly we are repulsed by it. From mass media to Horror films, we take the terrible and edit it down into a story until it is trivialised, until we are back in control and what was once unspeakable is a vicarious thrill ride. Echoing the 8mm rolls of animals killing prey which unfold behind director Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) during a scene in Nope, humanity turns the terrible into a spectacle because it makes us seem powerful, even if we are never in control.

The underlying theme of Nope only adds to the terror of the unknown and immediate threat lingering above the ranch as the film unfolds. Nope is Peele’s scariest film so far and does much to revive the terror in the concept of alien visitation, harking back to films from the 2000’s such as Signs and The War of the Worlds. Peele uses framing, camera position and suggestion to make certain scenes discomforting, echoing Alien’s formula of showing enough without telling. The potential UFO at the heart of Nope is horrifying for the first part of the film thanks to Peele’s use of suggestion and sound design which hints back at the death of OJ’s father. There is a central twist to Nope which explains what has come to prowl around the ranch. The twist fits with Nope’s exploration of the human need to feel powerful over the uncontrollable and infuses the film with a pall of Cosmic Horror. The problem is that the revelation eats away at the unknowable, making the outside force controllable. Deprived of any further twists to reinvigorate the menace and mystery of Nope’s story, which Peele did achieve in Get Out after its grand reveal, Nope becomes a flat thriller. Nope’s ending comes across as forced, its central commentary fades away and the sub-plot aimed at reconciling Em and OJ as siblings is discarded. Em remains a distinctly unlikeable person barely excused by her role as occasional and flat comic relief. The only character to benefit from Nope’s narrative curveball is OJ, as events draw parallels to his past. OJ is the best written character and is brilliantly played by Daniel Kaluuya. OJ remains endearing, acting with strength without callousness and making decisions which can be both practical and comedic, adding a sense of a normal person handling an abnormal situation.

Jordan Peele clearly has vision and a willingness to follow his creativity into new avenues for Horror. Get Out was a roaring success, and directors should not constantly have their films measured against one another. However, Nope is a premise which fails to meet its potential for a story that is engaging, terrifying and memorable, a criticism shared by recent Horror film Men. Enough goodwill is born through the first half of Nope to make its second half bearable, but Nope has rightly not earned the universal praise of Peele’s other works.

By Saul Shimmin

They Live

Lone drifter, George Nada, winds up in a recession ridden Los Angeles looking for work. Beginning to piece his life back together, George stumbles into a chilling conspiracy. Beneath the glitz and grime of contemporary Los Angeles, an alien species stalks among us, controlling humanity and the world in plain sight. Gifted with a pair of sunglasses that reveal the stark monochromatic truth, George is swept into a burgeoning rebellion for humanity’s future.

The critical and financial failure of Big Trouble in Little China caused director John Carpenter to split from Hollywood and return to independent film making. They Live is one of Carpenter’s films from his return to independent film, and from my experience his best so far. An action loaded thriller which does not take itself too seriously, They Live was critically panned upon its release for being a nonsensical thriller. Critics, just like they have done with other Carpenter’s films, were wrong. Behind the goofy appearance, They Live holds a message which should be listened to. The alien fifth column linked to the gaudy consumerism and rising human misery within the film is a critique of capitalist excess. Beneath the alien elite, the world is a grey world of oppressive control and conformity. George Nada, the man whose own surname means “nothing”, is the epitome of the everyman in this reality; a man who has been robbed of agency. The sunglasses not only reveal how little power George has, but the degree by which he is controlled by others. For all its apparent abundance, Carpenter sees democratic capitalism as a mirage draining most people of any real choice. Released in 1988, They Live’s message was muffled by the still ongoing Cold War. Yet by the 1990’s saw the sentiment of They Live echo into the mainstream. From the raging self-destruction of protagonist “D-Fens” in Falling Down to the rebellion of office worker Peter in Office Space, the 1990’s saw lone individuals realising that the system under which they lived ; be it society at large or their office was offering them nothing. Contemporary critics of They Live, just like the human population in the film, could not see past the surface.

Away from the film’s social and political message, They Live remains an enjoyable and engaging film, sporting the best parts of Carpenter’s style. The film has the pulpy adventurism of Escape from New York, while sporting the sharp humour and memorable quotes of The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China. There are a few events in the film’s first act which do feel like a leap, but They Live is overall a great story which cleverly and quietly loops back to earlier details in the background. Echoing The Thing, They Live is another ode by Carpenter to the sci-fi and horror b-movies of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The monochromatic reality and design of the alien infiltrators mimic the visual style of the genre.  They Live is also helped by great performances from wrestler-turned-actor Roddy Piper as George and the great Keith David as Frank. The score, created by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, bears the classic sound of Carpenters work from the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Overall, They Live is one of Carpenter’s lesser known films, but is certainly one of his best.

By Saul Shimmin