Idk. It has elements of horror but is that the main element of the film? It seems to be more about the personal relationships between characters and the world the inhabit, what they do for a living, the adventure of capturing something never seen before. And yeah, there are terrifying moments. It absolutely takes cues from horror, among plenty of other genres, but I think it transcends that genre tag in particular. This isn't Get Out or Us. The comparisons to Jaws are very apt; that's a horror film in a sense, sure, but that's not how I'd describe it to someone.
Like, yes, those are a few moments of horror that happen in a film much bigger than that lol I could list the scenes that played for laughs in my theater and call this a comedy but that wouldn't exactly be accurate.
I don't know, hard for me to think of a horror movie that doesn't deal heavily with personal relationships and the individual motivations of its characters. Even like a pure slasher has a ton of character building, you can't care about what happens to someone in a horror movie if you don't know anything about them. I think you're just overthinking it.
My friends thought Bodies x3 would be too scary for them. From the trailer. Nope is definitely a horror movie, and also so much more
Agree to disagree - it's literally a trope of slashers, especially since the 80s, that there is very little depth to characters. It's often a set 'em up, knock 'em down situation. But this isn't a slasher and that's a different argument. I just think outright calling this a horror film is a pretty big oversimplification, and I don't agree that analyzing the components of a hugely popular and original blockbuster are "overthinking it," but hey, that's me
Character depth and personal relationships aren’t really a marker of genre. Different kinds of films work with those elements in different ways, even within horror, even within slashers
I would like to go on the record in case this keeps going for a few more pages, this doesn't matter at all and people can call this whatever genre they want, its probably accurate. Still a great movie, and I think I can now say its my favorite of Jordan Peele's three films so far.
For anyone who's seen it, how concerned did it seem like Peele was to you w/ this movie fitting into any one specific genre categorization?
I mean horror can be character-based, and usually is, and it can also have all those elements. Sucks when people consider horror “less-than” or that it shouldn’t be taken as seriously as other genres. Horror is unfortunately always underrated even when it’s one of the most innovative genres thematically and artistically. More than anything this is a “creature feature,” with sci-fi and western elements, but that still makes it a horror film. Definitely wouldn’t even go near the comedy descriptor, it’s not nearly as funny as Get Out or Us
Yeah I should bow out because horror is my favorite genre and I feel like I'm being misinterpreted lol. I don't think it's superficial. I was referencing a certain type of slasher and that's besides the point.
whoa, sorry, I didn't think that's what you were saying, I was mostly just agreeing with the post above mine. Pretty sure we're in agreement that this has elements of horror and a bunch of other genres as well
Finally saw this last night. Joyous to finally post that I really enjoyed a movie, for a change. Can't get over the shoe. Need an answer although I know I'll never get one. As for funny vs scary, I have a personal sense of humor so I think a lot of stuff made me personally laugh because I could tell what Peele was about to make happen and it felt funny in an actions-to-consequences sort of way. But the fear and tension were great too, works for both emotions. Kaluuya was just perfect. The scene with the kids, so good.
this going on demand has led to a bunch of Twitter memes, I loved being able to pause it and rewind the best parts and highly recommend it. Definitely up there with my favorite movies of the year.
I’m also on Twitter talking about the movie a lot and from now on I will only be referring to the kills in this movie as getting zipped up by Jean Jacket.
Thanks to all the chatter on Twitter I discovered this neat article discussing the scientific creative process behind the design of Jean Jacket. Its scientific name is Occulonimbus edoequus which translates to “hidden dark cloud stallion-eater”, and it comes from a planet with conditions like ours where it can ride the wind and air currents skillfully. According to the article, Peele is going to release a scientific manuscript of the creature written by Kelsi Rutledge, a graduate student at the University of California. She’s going to be included as a “character” in the world of NOPE and the manuscript will be written by her, OJ, Emerald, and Angel. Would seem to confirm then that OJ isn’t a vision at the end and really does survive. They also apparently based the internal digestive system you see in the movie on this digital rendering of a sea creature called a “giant larvacean”: NOPE's Science Consultant Reveals the Name and Inspiration for the Movie's Alien
...huh. i kinda prefer the ending as ambiguous tbh, even though my personal feeling is that it really reads like OJ died
Also found this neat article about the VFX team and how the entire sky is a complete digital effect. There’s also a bit in there about how they filmed the digestive tract sequence. “Nope” VFX Supervisor Guillaume Rocheron on Creating That Spectacular Alien Creature
I never thought OJ died for even a second, it always felt like a triumphant moment. There were no other ghost moments like that so it'd be weird to have one randomly at the end. People have brought up OJ talking to his dad before but on rewatch that is clearly a memory, his dad was talking about Ghost, it was clearly before he died and before Ghost got zipped up. So excited to read through that article though.
Since I’m falling down a Twitter NOPE rabbit hole, someone also mentioned how Jean Jacket’s saucer form is similar to a camera eyepiece which, ha, that’s actually kind of a cool design note on Peele’s part. I think it was someone in here who pointed out that Jupe’s alien plushes he’s selling at his fairgrounds are similar to the television cameras on set when he was a child so they’re a literal manifestation of his trauma. Lots of creature design related to cameras.