Warning: this article contains spoilers.
Not many horror films truly scare me these days. But alien horror? Even the substandard to most send me into a fear frenzy. That’s why I’m taking a deep dive into the sub-genre.
Welcome to Aliens Scare Me. A look into alien horror films on a case by case basis. This month we dive into a brand new alien film (sort of) with Jordan Peele’s Nope.
What It’s About: Things are a little bit different for the column this month as Nope is still pretty fresh. So just one more spoiler warning before you go any further….
Nope, you could argue, isn’t even technically about aliens in the end. There’s a UFO but it isn’t piloted by nor does it contain freaky ass little green or grey aliens that may or may not want to probe us in our dark orifices. Whether it be for educational or recreational purposes (Hey man, I don’t know what aliens are into).
The UFO is rather an organism of its own which appears to be eating other lifeforms. It uses some sort of suction device that creates a tornadic dust funnel from the ground rather than your standard beam of “I’m fucked, now!” alien light. Basically treating human beings and animals like your Roomba does the Cheeto crumbs from your carpet (I’m not judging). Then spitting said remains and other debris at a high rate of velocity from the sky.
Nope is about a lot of things. Which is typical of a Jordan Peele movie. With respect to that and the fact we’re covering a movie you’ve probably already seen and read several reviews for (including our own), we’ll be focusing purely on the alien horror aspects of this one.
Why It’s Scary: For starters, the build up. The very first thing to happen in Nope doesn’t show us any UFOs and there’s no alien discussion at all. Instead, tiny bits of metal and debris start to inexplicably rain down from clear daytime skies. A nickel is dropped from the sky with such velocity it goes through Keith David’s character’s skull and into his brain, killing him. A normal house key is lodged into a horse’s backend. This strange phenomena is freaky enough alone but when you realize it was from the alien organism? You start to think about our lack of knowledge of physics, etc., compared to these aliens and how they could use them to really (in the words of The Faculty’s Josh Hartnett) “jack you up”.
The wide open spaces and sky on this California ranch and the way Peele shoots the UFO (before we ultimately see too much of it) is also a terrifying thing for the alien challenged such as myself. There is seemingly nowhere to hide when this UFO appears in this ocean of a sky. Day or night. The electricity goes haywire (another sign that you are in deep alien shit) and a horse or person is seemingly sucked into the sky by a dirt tornado and into a UFO shaped object that then takes off darting around the sky. It’s as freaky as it has ever been and it’s all shot beautifully.
The most frightening and disturbing alien moment of Nope comes from a mass abduction scene that I feel in my bones was a hat tip to Fire in the Sky and quite possibly the greatest alien abduction movie and scene of all time. A whole group of spectators are rounded up at this fair and pulled into the UFO at once. You don’t know yet that this UFO isn’t a ship but rather an organism about to eat these men, women and children. They are sucked into the hole of the UFO and then passed through its insides in suffocating yellowish tubes as we, the audience, listen to them suffer and scream. It’s haunting and disturbing enough of a moment to really stick with you after the film is over. Thanks, Jordan Peele.
Then there’s the moment post-mass abduction/eating. When the organism floats above the home everyone is hiding in and decides to create a moment that I can only describe as The Shining meets Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The alien organism parks above the farmhouse and starts to purge the blood of the group of humans it just devoured. Shooting from the sides of the UFO comes blood and other tidbits, raining down from its circular edges on top of the home. It was, to put it bluntly: gnarly as fuck, dude. OJ at this moment is trapped in his car and looks into the sky for just a moment, seeing an awesome display of the alien ship’s power before going “Nope” and getting back into his truck, ignoring it. All of this would provide the information the group needed to take down the organism but it was nonetheless original UFO programming and flat out pretty damn cool to look at.
Where It Lands: There are multiple other tent-pole, action packed moments involving the UFO in Nope but they aren’t necessarily frightening. Specifically, one of my main problems with the movie overall is that they abandoned the UFO aesthetic in the third act. The UFO turns into a strange jellyfish blanket shape; its entryway becoming some sort of origami, confetti, Russian egg version of the tongue in Alien. I realize I just made that sound kind of scarier than it was. Nonetheless, this new form coupled with the fact this thing is more of an errant, esoteric type of animal sort of turned my fear into simple confusion by the time the final act rolled around.
Although Nope wasn’t the alien shit your pants fright fest I was hoping it would be narratively, it managed to pull off multiple moments that will live in alien horror lore forever and were absolutely stunning to watch on the big screen. So sincerely, thanks Jordan Peele.
The post How Jordan Peele’s ‘Nope’ Brings Fresh Terror to the Alien Horror Genre [Aliens Scare Me] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.