Nope

When random objects fall from the sky killing his father, Otis Haywood Junior (OJ) isn’t convinced by the government’s explanation that it was things falling out of a plane, instead OJ is adamant he saw something in the clouds but he’s not sure what and can’t prove it.

Trying to keep his horse-wrangling business afloat OJ loses a job for a commercial when his horse, Lucky, panics on set. Not even his fast-talking sister, Em, can help save the job and they head back to the family ranch via the theme park “Jupiter’s Claim” where OJ plans to sell Lucky to the park’s owner Ricky, with OJ thinking it’ll be used in one of the park’s shows as with the other horse he’s been selling to keep the ranch going.

That night as OJ and Em reminisce while drinking from their father’s liquor cabinet, Em spooks another horse, Ghost, by playing loud music. Wondering what Ghost is doing out in the pen OJ heads out to find her and sees the lights in Jupiter’s Claim dim and go out, followed by the house lights dimming before extinguishing as well.

Looking up, OJ sees something lurking in the clouds — it can’t be a plane as it’s darting around too quickly and so he tries to make it back to the house, while Em sits helplessly inside watching whatever is in the sky.

The following day rather than fleeing Em sees an opportunity: they can film the UFO and sell the photos and make enough to clear their debts, save the ranch and buy back all of the horses OJ sold to Ricky. Heading to a local tech store, they get talking to the sales rep Angel who is a bit of a conspiracy nut and he agrees to help them set up the camera equipment they’ve bought.

OJ and Em are suspicious of what Ricky is up to and when OJ confesses to Em that Ricky had been trying to buy the ranch so he could expand Jupiter’s Claim, Em heads off and steals one of the large plastic horses that Ricky had placed outside the gates of the theme park.

Angel wants to hang around to see what they can capture on the cameras but Em is having none of it and sends Angel packing and starts to monitor the cameras herself. OJ, finding that one of horses is missing, heads out to check on the others when he’s jumped by what looks to be aliens but instead it’s just Ricky’s kids getting their own back for Em stealing the horse decoration.

After he scares them off, OJ begins to hunt for the missing horse, Clover, but as he does so the strange shape in the clouds returns. It begins to chase OJ as the power starts to drop out around the ranch but luckily the new cameras they have installed have a battery backup, the only problem is is that the lens is being blocked by an insect and Em can’t get a clear shot of the UFO.

She gets a call from Angel who has hacked into the cameras and is watching everything going on and he managed to get a glimpse of the UFO before it got hidden by the praying mantis on the lens. The following day they decided they need a more robust way of filming and persuade a cameraman they met on the set of the commercial Lucky was supposed to star in to come and help.

Antlers Holst, a cameraman and cinematographer who wants to make his mark on the film industry, has developed a hand-wound film camera that will work even when the power is out and he hopes that he’ll be able to get the shot of a lifetime of the UFO.

OJ has been slowly coming to the realisation that the practice events Ricky has been running at night which cause the power to go out are him calling in the UFO and feeding it the horses that he’s been sold. Because of this OJ surmises that the UFO must be an intelligent creature rather than some form of machine and he devises a plan to draw out the creature so they can get it on film.

With the plan in place, will OJ and Em get the proof they are after so they can save the ranch? Will Antlers get the shot of his career? Will Angel get Em? And will Ricky’s plot be uncovered?

Close Encounters Of The Skyline Kind

🎃Warning! Spoilers for Nope ahead!🐎

I really, really enjoyed this film. It was fun, well acted, directed and edited, the sound design and music were fantastic and the cinematography was exceptional.

While I found the inclusion of the “Gordy the Chimp” storyline at the start of the film confusing as it wasn’t directly tied to the Haywoods — I initially thought the father might have been the chimp’s wrangler but the family just dealt with horses — later scenes showed that Ricky felt that Gordy had spared him from attack and this gave him a false sense of dominance when it came to dealing with Jean Jacket (which OJ named the UFO after one of their horses).

Because of this Ricky thought he could feed Jean Jacket a few horses and get it to appear on command but, just like with Gordy The Chimp, anything can set an animal off no matter how well or how long it’s been trained.

The scene where we see Jean Jacket descend from the sky, it’s gaping mouth opening to hoover up those unfortunate people at the show was as disgusting as it was hilarious. When they were pulled up into the creature it reminded me of a combination of 2005 War Of The Worlds and the 2010 film Skyline with them being used as a food source while being dragged through the interior of a living ship.

There’s also hints of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind with both OJ and Ricky’s seeming obsession with the UFO with both, in their own way, wanting to tame it and be close to it.

While there isn’t a huge amount to the storyline: it’s basically mysterious creature shows up, man thinks he can exploit it for profit, people die, the creature is vanquished, the characters are well rounded — even OJ who barely speaks throughout the film — and come across as authentic even in the fantastical circumstances of the film.

I went into the film not knowing what it was really about, I mean I had heard there was some sort of alien twist and when I realised it was a UFO I did get a bit concerned it would fall into usual sci-fi tropes but I was pleasantly surprised. While the film does borrow a bit from the aforementioned Close Encounter and Skyline in terms of obsession and alien mechanics there’s also a hint of Tremors there too, not just with the desert setting but also with the humour and camaraderie between the characters.

This is the third Jordan Peele film I’ve reviewed for the 31 horror films in October series and, unlike watching 2 Ari Aster films which was a bit much, I thoroughly enjoyed all of them. Ironically I’ve watched them in release order too so I was able to see Peele grow as a director too with each film gaining more confidence with a bolder shot choice and more defined vision of what he was trying to achieve.

I really enjoyed Nope and I think it’s the best of the 3 Peele’s films I have watched so far and I am looking forward to seeing what he comes up with next — and I certainly won’t leave it as long to check it out as I did with Get Out, Us and Nope.

What did you think of Nope? Did you enjoy the alien-as-a-sideshow aspect? Think that the parts about Gordy The Chimp were a bit of a waste of time? Wish we saw more of the inside of the alien or more about where it came from? Let me know in the comments below.

Watch Nope if you’d be the first person to literally nope on out of there if you saw an odd cloud that didn’t move even though it was really windy.

Where to Watch:

Apple TVGoogle Play MoviesFandango At HomeNetflixAmazon VideoYouTubeNetflix Standard with Ads

If you liked this, I think you'll like:

Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2 Halloween (2007) Lords of the Deep The Blair Witch Project (1999)