Nope Director Jordan Peele Speaks Out on Nightmares Inspiring His Films

With the release of his latest film, Nope, Jordan Peele has firmly established himself as not just a gifted filmmaker, but one who has a unique and haunting approach to the horror genre. Both his previous films Get Out and Us are unsettling in a way that not just evokes fear but makes the viewer think as well much in the same way nightmares do and Nope is poised to do much the same. Now, Peele explains to ComicBook.com on how it’s nightmares that, in part, inspire his films as he takes the elements that “intersect” in his psyche and turn them to story.

“Nightmares have this uncanny valley. They have this surreal, liminal space that I just love,” Peele said. “I love when something’s creepy in a way you almost don’t even know why, but it just is. And so, you know, when I have a really juice nightmare, it’s in that tone. And that’s what it is. That’s what I’m doing. I’m taking some of the way some of these things intersect in my psyche in a very dark way, trying to turn them into a story.”

Nope reunites Peel with Oscar winner Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out, Judas and the Black Messiah), who is joined by Keke Palmer (Hustlers, Alice) and Oscar nominee Steven Yeun (Minari, Okja) as residents in a lonely gulch of inland California who bear witness to an uncanny and chilling discovery. While Peele is inspired by his nightmares, Peele has also spoken about how he wanted to explore the “addiction to the spectacle”.

“I started off wanting to make a film that would put an audience in the immersive experience of being in the presence of a UFO,” Peele previously told Empire. “I wanted to make a spectacle, something that would promote my favorite art form and my favorite way of watching that art form: the theatrical experience. As I started writing the script, I started to dig into the nature of spectacle, our addiction to spectacle, and the insidious nature of attention. So, that’s what it’s about. And it’s about a brother and sister and healing their relationship.”

Nope, which at the time of this article’s writing has an 82 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, opens in theaters on July 22nd.