In our textbook Film Art: An Introduction, four main genres were mentioned to be present throughout the history of American Filmmaking: The Western, Horror, Musical, and Sports Films. The movie Nope, directed by Jordan Peele, does a fantastic job of infusing two of the four main genres in the film, successfully creating a film that cleverly incorporates western elements such as horses, cowboy attires, and fusing that into a Sci-fi Horror movie that revolves the presence of “Jean Jacket”, a paranormal object that does not follow the nature of law.

To start, a common element in Western movies, one of the earliest movie genre, is the conflict between the lawless frontier and the orderly civilization. This theme is actually reflected multiple times in the movie. There is a clear contrast between the mode of transportation used by modern civilization and the mode of transportation utilized by the Western cowboys – horses. Lucky, the horse that is mentioned several times throughout the film, actually plays a significant role. Its disobedience towards the film crew at the beginning of the film may symbolizes that wildlife cannot be tamed by humans and conform to society. This theme of conflict between the disorderly wild and the modern civilization extends to Chimp Gordy. In this case film crew was trying to use Gordy for their own purpose, which is to increase television views. Again, the use of animals for humans’ selfish gains backfired. The chimp ended up killing everyone on set besides Jupe. Finally, this theme was reiterated again in the film through the death of Jupe. Jupe did not learn from his past and he was trying to tame the beast “Jean Jacket” for his business gain, just like how the film crew was trying to tame “Gordy” for the television views. The result? Jupe, along with everybody in the vicinity, was sucked into the alienated object and eventually suffered a very long and painful death.

In addition to the theme of conflict between humans and the wildlife, western mode of transportation such as horses are also shown to be superior compared to the modern human transportation such as cars. In the faces of Jean Jacket’s power, all modern technologies such as motorcycles and cars lose their power, and in turn lose their purpose of transporting humans around. For example, when the motorcycle loses power, the reporter had to rely on OJ’s help to get him out of the area. However, horses, a common mode of transportation for cowboys, continue to work without fail. Eventually, the main protagonistic horse Lucky, becomes a tool that the main protagonists use to eventually capture a picture of Jean Jacket. Ultimately, the theme of Western horses vs modern technology is also clearly shown, and the director Jordan Peele made it clear that western horses are the more reliable choices in the face of danger.

Lastly, I just want to mention that although this film is categorized as a horror movie, it does not follow the typical tropes that horror films typically go through. The horror genre is defined as a film that tries to arouse a emotional impulse from the viewers, typically through the presence of monsters that violate natural laws. While Nope does fall into this category with the presence of Jean Jacket, the film does not rely on frequent jump scares to evoke that emotion from viewers. Instead, Peele explores societal themes such as “humans abusing animals and nature for their own goods” and “human’s reliance on modern technology”, effectively making the audience reflect and creates a fear within their own mind from their reflections. This approach successfully subverts the audiences’ expectations of a traditional Hollywood horror movie that relies on frequent jump scares, and sets a new standard on what could be possible with a horror films that does not simply rely on surface level scares.