Nope: We Say Yep to Jordan Peele's Strange Thriller About What's Hiding Behind a Cloud

By Jim Slotek

Rating: B

Nope, the latest provocative horror offering from Jordan Peele, opens with the bloody aftermath of a homicidal Hollywood chimp run amok. Its connection to the “bad miracle” hiding behind a cloud at a horse ranch in the California desert is iffy.

But this is the kind of tangential creative urge Peele brings to his wry, unpredictable oeuvre. If there is to be a psycho chimp, there will be a psycho chimp, logic be damned.

Of course, Nope has been cannily marketed for months with only the barest hints of what it’s about, starting with a single poster image of an angry looking cloud.

Siblings Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer, and tech-geek Brandon Perea still pondering the “money shot.”

As dribs and drabs of plot points have been made public, a saucer shaped object shyly made its appearance in recent trailers.

So yes, there is an alien element. But mostly, Nope is an eccentric vehicle for some of Peele’s favourite themes – the movie business, Black social history, and character-over-plot.

We meet the reserved O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya) whose name means “Otis Jr.” but has the bonus effect of making white people jumpy. (The title comes from his tendency to mutter, “Nope” to anything dire). He and his firecracker sister Emerald (Keke Palmer) have been struggling to keep their movie horse ranch running since the death of Otis Sr. (Keith David) from flying shrapnel in a freak storm (a harbinger of things to come).

It’s an enterprise with a history. O.J. cut his movie-wrangling teeth working on The Scorpion King (and still has the hoodie). The family is generations removed from their ancestor and founder of their movie-animal enterprise, a Black jockey who was the first screen character in an ancient celluloid short.

They don’t just know horses, horses know them. And in Nope, the horses are initially the only ones who instinctively know there’s reason to be frightened.

Reaction to extraterrestrials varies throughout the genre. In some movies (Close Encounters of the Third Kind for example), people hold to the notion of peaceful co-existence. Others prepare for war (or despair for it).

But in Nope, everyone simply seems to be working an angle. Once the object in question makes its appearance, Emerald badgers O.J. for a “money shot” of real evidence of extraterrestrial visitation (or “the Oprah shot” as she calls it). The ex-child star owner of a cheesy dude ranch (Steven Yeun) decides to take advantage of the regularity of the apparitions to stage a show for paying customers (complete with costumed aliens).

There’s even an unidentified correspondent for TMZ who makes a memorable (and again, utterly random) cameo.

The isolated, desert milieu at times brings to mind the waiting game played by Mel Gibson’s family in M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs. (And the resolution is just as facile).

Still, it’s a premise that leaves plenty of room for random add-on characters. A tech store employee (Brandon Perea) who sells O.J. and Emerald high-end cameras to get their “money shot,” shows up to lend his initially unwanted expertise once he discovers what they’re looking to film.

And veteran Canadian actor Michael Wincott has his own scene-stealing moments as a movie director who sees an opportunity for filmmaking glory, shooting the power-dampening mystery object with an ancient hand-cranked camera. (At one point, again for no apparent reason, he takes a moment to deliver a gravelly, spoken-word version of Sheb Wooley’s novelty song “One-Eyed, One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater.” This is a movie with strange moments.)

Of the three horror films Peele has made (including Get Out and Us), Nope is arguably the third best. But that isn’t a particularly damning assessment. All three are worth the watch, and Peele has already effectively sold me a ticket to his next movie.

Nope. Written and directed by Jordan Peele. Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yuen. Opens in theatres Friday, July 22.