NOPE (July 2022)

    

NOPE

(July 2022)

“I will cast abominable filth at you, make you vile, and make you a spectacle.”

--Nahum 3:6

“What if I told you… that in about an hour… you’ll leave here different?”

Just as Us was a different cinematic animal than Get Out, so is Jordan Peele's latest, Nope, a different beast, perhaps even more so.

It isn't the same kind of “social thriller” Get Out and Us most definitely were.

His assertions regarding “the big summer blockbuster spectacle film” and “the violence of attention”? Well, he rather effectively addresses those with Nope…

“Who is gonna go down there and get the star out of his trailer?”

Even more than his two previous films, Peele’s Nope asks its audience to enter it knowing as little as possible and with the least amount of preconceived notions.

Which, admittedly, could be a big ask for some simply because Get Out and Us were so very clearly about Something.

Well, Nope is about Something too, just not in the same way…

Or, you could look at it as Peele choosing to interrogate that Something in a different, more subtle way than his previous efforts.

“We don’t deserve the impossible.”

So let’s just talk about that cast instead, shall we?

Not only do we get some strong, noteworthy performances from the three top billers, Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer (as the Haywood siblings) and Steven Yeun, but the fine character writing by Peele extends even to Brandon Perea’s lovelorn retail jockey, Angel, and to Michael Wincott’s “legendary cinematographer,” Antlers Holst (particularly to the latter).

And speaking of that cast, we also get familiar ¡Qué horror! face Osgood Perkins*, sadly appearing all too briefly as Fynn Bachman.

We even get Donna Mills (Knots Landing, yo!) in the package!

“How exquisitely stupid is that?”

So just trust in the Peele, and go into Nope with as blank a slate as possible, and simply allow yourself to be dazzled by a genre virtuoso who very clearly levels up his filmmaking craft with his latest…

“Nobody f*cks with Haywood, b!tch! Nobody! You hear me?!”

* Peele and Perkins previously worked together on The Twilight Zone’s “You Might Also Like”.

Perkins, of course, has also appeared ‘round these parts for The Blackcoat’s Daughter and I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

(I really should get around to catching up on Gretel & Hansel…)

(Nope key art courtesy of impawards.com & bloody-disgusting.com)

A Rundown of the 13 Best Horror Movies I've Seen in the Past Year
[7 of 13]

I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE

(September 2016)

"I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living.
"It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind.”

After carving out an entire slot for himself in the ¡Qué horror! 2016 rundown--for co-writing the screenplay of The Girl in the Photographs, and for his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter--Osgood Perkins is back, with his sophomore effort, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

Here, we see 28-year-old hospice nurse Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson), move in with the elderly Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), a writer of horror novels (“… [t]he kinds of thick, frightening books that people buy at airports and supermarkets,” Lily observes).

Novels with titles like The Dark Moon Flower, Underwater Housewife, She Wore Her Hair Around Her Neck, and--of particular interest to the film’s plot--The Lady in the Walls.

True to ¡Qué horror! form, things do not go well.

At all.

Nothing more need be said, save that I Am the Pretty Thing… is the kind of horror film that advances with a languid, stealthy tread, trailing its horror behind it in a train of rotting lace.

If you enjoy the exquisite, lingering dread of slow burn horror, then you definitely need to check this one out…

“… [b]ut left alone, with only your own eyes looking back at you… and even the prettiest things rot.

“You fall apart like flowers…”

Parting Shot 1:

It’s interesting to note that there’s another prominent ghost in this film: Osgood’s father, the one and only Anthony Perkins.

From the prominent use of “You Keep Coming Back Like A Song” (by Tony Perkins with Urbie Green and His Orchestra, contained in From My Heart from 1958), to a scene from 1956’s Friendly Persuasion (for which Perkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), to the film’s dedication (“for A.P.” which I can only assume stands for “Anthony Perkins”), the late Perkins’ presence is very much felt in I Am the Pretty Thing…

Parting Shot 2:

There also another Perkins with a prominent role here as well, Osgood’s brother, Elvis, who provides the film’s soundtrack, as he did on The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

(I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House OS courtesy of werstreamt.es.)

¡QUÉ HORROR! 2017

Candidate #5

I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE

(September 2016)

"I have heard myself say that a house with a death in it can never again be bought or sold by the living.
"It can only be borrowed from the ghosts that have stayed behind.”

After carving out an entire slot for himself in the ¡Qué horror! 2016 rundown--for co-writing the screenplay of The Girl in the Photographs, and for his feature debut, The Blackcoat’s Daughter--Osgood Perkins is back, with his sophomore effort, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House.

Here, we see 28-year-old hospice nurse Lily Saylor (Ruth Wilson), move in with the elderly Iris Blum (Paula Prentiss), a writer of horror novels (“… [t]he kinds of thick, frightening books that people buy at airports and supermarkets,” Lily observes).

Novels with titles like The Dark Moon Flower, Underwater Housewife, She Wore Her Hair Around Her Neck, and--of particular interest to the film’s plot--The Lady in the Walls.

True to ¡Qué horror! form, things do not go well.

At all.

Nothing more need be said, save that I Am the Pretty Thing… is the kind of horror film that advances with a languid, stealthy tread, trailing its horror behind it in a train of rotting lace.

If you enjoy the exquisite, lingering dread of slow burn horror, then you definitely need to check this one out…

“… [b]ut left alone, with only your own eyes looking back at you… and even the prettiest things rot.

“You fall apart like flowers…”

Parting Shot 1:

It’s interesting to note that there’s another prominent ghost in this film: Osgood’s father, the one and only Anthony Perkins.

From the prominent use of “You Keep Coming Back Like A Song” (by Tony Perkins with Urbie Green and His Orchestra, contained in From My Heart from 1958), to a scene from 1956’s Friendly Persuasion (for which Perkins was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor), to the film’s dedication (“for A.P.” which I can only assume stands for “Anthony Perkins”), the late Perkins’ presence is very much felt in I Am the Pretty Thing…

Parting Shot 2:

There also another Perkins with a prominent role here as well, Osgood’s brother, Elvis, who provides the film’s soundtrack, as he did on The Blackcoat’s Daughter.

(I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House OS courtesy of werstreamt.es.)