The King of Modern Horror Jordan Peele has explained what makes his upcoming UFO horror NOPE different from his other movies.
Peele sat down with Get Out and Nope star Daniel Kaluuya for Essence, and the pair spoke about Kaluuya’s rise to fame, Peele as an auteur, horror, and countless other topics.
At one point, the Judas and The Black Messiah actor asked Peele what made NOPE different to Get Out and Us. Peele then claimed the filmed “transcends the horror genre”.
“It’s so tricky being considered in the vanguard of Black horror, because obviously Black horror is so very real, and it’s hard to do it in a way that’s not retraumatizing and sad. I was going into my third horror film starring Black leads, and somewhere in the process I realized that the movie had to be about Black joy as well, in order to fit what the world needs at this moment. So that is part of why there’s sort of a spectrum of tonality of genre in here, because I wanted to give the horror, but I also wanted to give our characters agency and adventure and hope and joy and fun that they deserve.”
“I think one of the things we have with this film is a movie that transcends the horror genre, in a way. The first film clip [Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion] was essentially a Black man on a horse who has been forgotten and erased. Part of this film, to me, is a celebration and a response to that. We can be the leads not only of a horror movie but also action, adventure, comedy, etcetera.”
NOPE stars Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yuen, Barbie Ferriera and more. It premieres in theaters on July 22.
