What is Jordan Peele's Nope About?

Published: 15 Feb 2022 9:10 PM +00:00 Updated: 15 Feb 2022 9:10 PM +00:00

Director Jordan Peele, who up until recently was best known for his comedic work on the hit show Key & Peele, has quickly made a name for himself on the horror landscape, with mind-bending thriller Get Out (2017) and Us (2019), both of which were critically-acclaimed box office hits. Now, he's set to shake things up once again with Nope, which is set for theaters this year. But what is Jordan Peel's Nope about? Another mind-bending mystery no doubt, so let's break down the trailer and find out everything we know so far!

Nope is the latest horror movie from "the mind of Jordan Peele", but it's not easy to work out what the film is actually about based on the trailer alone, which recently debuted at the 2022 Super Bowl. Nevertheless, let's refresh our memories on the weirdness that will most definitely have many cinemagoers shaking their head and saying "Nope" on its release!

Check out the chilling new trailer below:

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There's a lot to unpack in this relatively short teaser, from horses being driven to fear by strange things in the sky, to zombie-looking locals. While the premise of the film seemingly revolves around UFOs (emphasis on the "seemingly" - this is Jordan Peele we're talking about), Nope still looks pretty vague, which is in no way a bad thing for a horror movie.

What we do know is that it's an American neo-Western science-fiction horror movie, so it's entirely possible that UFOs and aliens will have some bearing on the movie. It's even set in a backwater town, which only adds to the likelihood. But knowing Peele, there's obviously going to be something else at play - in other words, something smart and unexpected.

So what is Nope about? Well, the most obvious thing from the trailer alone is that it's a horror movie. But as we know, if director Jordan Peele's previous works, Get Out and Us, are anything to go by, this won't be your standard, run-of-the-mill horror movie. In fact, it's fair to say that Jordan Peele has also quickly become the new-era M Night Shyamalan.

In other words, Peele's horrors seem to be largely based around some kind of mystery and intrigue, which is still the case with Shyamalan's works, even if they're nowhere near as masterful as his earlier stuff (Signs, The Sixth Sense, The Village, and so on). But Peele's style is also fresh, surreal, and at times, pretty downright jaw-dropping.

Get Out sees Daniel Kaluuya's Chris visit his white girlfriend's parents' house for the weekend. They seem nice at first, but as the movie goes on, you'll realize that Meet the Parents this is not, as Chris begins to unravel a truly sinister secret, and he is pitted right at the heart of Missy and Dean's deadly, and quite frankly, totally bonkers scheme.

At surface level, Get Out is a run-of-the-mill affair, but a great one all the same. But fortunately, this isn't a surface-level movie. There's a lot more here than meets the eye, as the film deals with many serious themes, with interracial relationships and racism being right at the heart of it. Now, Kaluuya is returning to the world of Peele in Nope.

If you thought Get Out was a brain-bender, just wait until you check out Us. Lupita Nyong'o plays Adelaide Wilson, who revisits her old childhood home with her husband, son and daughter. But when the family is visited during the night by their doppelgangers, each of whom is wearing orange overalls and wielding scissors, a nightmare begins to unravel.

But as we soon learn, Adelaide's family aren't the only ones with nightmare-lookalikes in the neighborhood - it seems everyone has, as a race of deadly feral clones emerges, from a secret underground system, intent on overthrowing the world's current population. To protect her family, Adelaide must confront a horrifying truth about her own past.

Nope will likely follow suit in terms of the mystery horror elements. According to Wikipedia, the official synopsis is as follows: The plot follows residents of an isolated town who witness a mysterious and abnormal event. Sure, it's not much to go by, and this can be figured out from the trailer itself, but in our opinion, the more mystery, the merrier.

With that said, the hungry moviegoer in us wants to know as much as we can, with of course the exception of the actual plot! The Verge's Charles Pulliam-Moore described the official trailer as "one of the rare modern movies with this much hype around it to make it this close to its release date without the public knowing basically anything about it."

Let's just hope that Nope doesn't get ruined for anyone in the meantime (you can rest assured that we won't include any spoilers in our articles leading up to the movie).

Jordan Peele's Nope will be released in theaters on July 22. It stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun.

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