Jordan Peele
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Filmography
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Connections, in both directions
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)
Directed by Stanley Kramer
influenced Get Out (2017), Nope (2022)
Plot Themes
Get Out takes the initial premise of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner and then twists it with The Stepford Wives to create a compelling, thoughtful critique of white power.
That is part of Get Out ’s problem and the joy of the film: the work is its own “thinkpiece,” while borrowing genre notes from Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner , The Stepford Wives, and Being John Malkovich .
“Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” meets “The Stepford Wives” in “ Get Out ,” in which a white girl brings her black boyfriend home to meet her parents, whose superficially warm welcome masks an unthinkably dark secret.
Suffice it to say that Peele has created his own horror-fied version of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner that fearlessly goes for broke in a third act that ratchets up the insanity of Chris’ predicament.
A popular reference I’ve seen pointed out is Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), though I would update its mention by acknowledging The Dinner Game (1998) in the same breath.
It certainly takes cues from cinematic history, and could be elevator pitched as "The Stepford Wives meets Guess Who's Coming To Dinner," but with a playful sense of tone, amazing performances, and a sharp bite, it resonates with you long after you've left the theater.
With impressive precision Peele remixes a broad range of influences, including the incomprehensible terror of Lovecraft, more niche genre fare like Ron Underwood’s Tremors , classic Hollywood, and even beyond, such as a direct reference to Akira , through thrilling replication of the famous bike-slide shot (perhaps his tribute to a cancelled remake he was once linked to).
Whilst Nope nods to - and borrows from - other well-known ‘alien invasion’ films ( Signs , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and War of the Worlds ), as well as pop-culture horror ( Tremors , Poltergeist ), it also manages to be its own unique film, with genuinely impressive twists and well-timed comedy.
O.J., ever the animal trainer that his father was, realizes he must play by the animal’s rules and respect its ornate posturing—leading to a dazzling sequence in the final act that recalls the crop duster scene in North by Northwest (1959) combined with the monstrous threat at the end of Tremors (1990).
Some of the bait and switch in trying to ferret out the entity also has some of the seagoing fun of “Jaws” (1975), with players at different posts reacting to unfolding events differently, though given the dusty, spare terrain it reminds me more of the quirky 1990s cult hit “Tremors.”
Fans of Peele’s previous work would be correct to assume that a horror film is to follow, and while there are a handful of scary and intense sequences, this is much more akin to a film like Jaws or Tremors than it is Fire in the Sky .
A Black sci-fi horror Western sounds like a goulash that can’t work, but the director – channeling “Jaws,” “Close Encounters,” “Signs,” and B-flick classics like “Tremors” – knows to keep the focus on his characters and his tongue at least half in cheek.
With impressive precision Peele remixes a broad range of influences, including the incomprehensible terror of Lovecraft, more niche genre fare like Ron Underwood’s Tremors , classic Hollywood, and even beyond, such as a direct reference to Akira , through thrilling replication of the famous bike-slide shot (perhaps his tribute to a cancelled remake he was once linked to).
Sometimes literally: Hoyte van Hoytema’s 65mm compositions lend the carnage an intergalactic scale that makes even the film’s most familiar tropes feel bracingly new, and inspire a degree of holy terror that allows the grand finale to alternate between heart-in-your-throat horror and fistpump-worthy “Akira” references as cinematography assumes a hands-on roll in the action (Peele keeps the film’s self-reflexive streak to a low boil, but cranks it up to a delirious high in the dying minutes).
Em’s journey goes from wanting “the Oprah shot” to shutting down in survival mode, making her eventual turn in the rousing finale (complete with a visual nod to 1988’s Akira) feel triumphant on a personal level as well.
Even a direct reference to Akira ’s famous bike-slide shot can’t shatter the illusion that what we’re watching is wholly, thrillingly original.
Pop culture fans will have a field day spotting the references (there’s definitely a shout-out at one stage to Akira ) and influences (fans of mind-melting anime Neon Genesis Evangelion will have something to discuss afterwards).
While most will talk and gush over the Akira scene reference—which is dope, by the way—it is very much earned.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Nope (2022), Us (2019)
Plot Themes Visuals
Whilst Nope nods to - and borrows from - other well-known ‘alien invasion’ films ( Signs , Close Encounters of the Third Kind , and War of the Worlds ), as well as pop-culture horror ( Tremors , Poltergeist ), it also manages to be its own unique film, with genuinely impressive twists and well-timed comedy.
Peele tackles ambitious Spielberg-ian themes which makes Nope feel like his Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) while paying homage to the origins of cinema as well as westerns and science fiction films that have come before it.
Obviously, the film’s sci-fi themes are incredibly similar to Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind, only this time combined with Peele’s signature biting social satire.
It’s Jordan Peele’s homage to westerns and early-era Spielberg, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in particular being the most overt references.
While the calls to compare parts of Nope to Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are valid and understandable; Nope ends up being more akin to the underappreciated Trollhunter, than anything else.
A UFO-focused story featuring echoes of Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, this is a film on some level about watching and waiting, with characters gazing at the clouds, starting or thrilling to the flickers of movement that they see.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Directed by Roman Polanski
influenced Get Out (2017), Us (2019), Nope (2022)
Themes Visuals Plot
To be fair, Peele is clearly riffing on some films he has seen before, including “The Stepford Wives” and “ Rosemary’s Baby ,” although with a charged, racial twist.
Rose’s parents throw a party for their wealthy white neighbors, who show up looking like Satanic extras from “Rosemary’s Baby,” and who proceed to assail Chris with their country-club manners and moronic attempts at conversation.
Cinematically, Peele draws influences from The Stepford Wives, Rosemary’s Baby and anything where a secret collective hides behind their portrait of cheery perfection.
“Get Out” is a cutting-edge, fresh and sometimes bat-bleep-crazy mash-up of “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” and “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives,” with dashes of John Carpenter’s “They Live,” among other films, mixed in for good measure.
Writer-director Jordan Peele is best known as a comedian (he was the Peele in Comedy Central's Key & Peele), but he is also a horror-movie fiend, and is aiming here for the escalating, vise-tightening tension of movies he’s admired (his influences include Rosemary’s Baby, and he’s named his female lead Rose).
Just as “Rosemary’s Baby” and “The Stepford Wives” transformed the genre into panicky feminist fantasias, this becomes a mind trip of interracial mistrust.
Film fans may notice the VHS tapes framing the television, including C.H.U.D. , The Man with Two Brains , The Right Stuff , A Nightmare on Elm Street , and one of three Corey Haim references in the picture, The Goonies .
Instead, it's remembered for The Lost Boys, which is just The Goonies wearing plastic vampire fangs.
Opening with a shot of a television surrounded by VHS tapes that tease at some of the film's possible inspirations ( C.H.U.D. , The Goonies , The Right Stuff ; which of these does not belong?)…
On the shelf next to the TV are VHS tapes of C.H.U.D., The Goonies, and, perhaps most prophetically, The Man with Two Brains.
Clues are scattered throughout that ask us to look for some deep, hidden meaning – starting with the row of 1980s VHS tapes visible at the start of the film's prologue, from The Goonies to The Man With Two Brains .
Interpreting Peele’s silliness — early nods to The Man with Two Brains, C.H.U.D., and The Goonies — doesn’t go beyond his trivializing black American deprivation into junk-movie entertainment.
More importantly, he rips off (or “pays homage to”) the iconic chase sequences from Jaws , with inflatable air dancers standing in for those floating yellow barrels that made Spielberg’s shark all the more terrifying when unseen.
Once the assumed nature of the object in the sky terrorizing them is revealed, Peele’s film plays like an homage to Jaws (1975), sprinkled with 80’s references, like Poltergeist (1982) and a creepy use of Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses At Night.”
I was speaking at my screening to fellow film critic Preson Barta, and we both noticed there are quite a few parallels to JAWS, even some of the characters feeling like spiritual equivalents to the ones featured in the Steven Spielberg classic.
It’s Jordan Peele’s homage to westerns and early-era Spielberg, Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind in particular being the most overt references.
While the calls to compare parts of Nope to Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind are valid and understandable; Nope ends up being more akin to the underappreciated Trollhunter, than anything else.
While you’ll recognize Peele’s tribute to several films, “Jaws” being the most prominent, “Nope” is unequivocally original, the concept so outlandish yet so simple, that it will forever change how you look at UFOs.
The film it most resembles may be M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs," in which horror also was initiated by an alien presence, but what it really reminded me of, in the way it combines spectacle and emotional investment, is Steven Spielberg at his best.
OJ, who is played by Daniel Kaluuya with the guarded poise of a great Western star, will ride his horse and lure out the craft in a sequence that can be ranked with anything by J.J. Abrams or early M. Night Shyamalan, whose “Signs” is another movie we can reference here.
Yet watching the movie, you can just about taste the DNA of Steven Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” and “Nope” mirrors the trajectory of other films that have been made in the shadow of “Close Encounters,” like M. Night Shyamalan’s “Signs” and Denis Villeneuve’s “Arrival.”
While Nope takes a Spielberg-like approach to its alien-encounter story, full of teasing moments punctuated by cathartic, cinematic spectacle, it also channels M. Night Shyamalan’s polarizing 2002 extraterrestrial-horror film Signs at times.
The isolated, desert milieu at times brings to mind the waiting game played by Mel Gibson’s family in M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs .
The marketing would have you believe “Nope” revolves around an alien invasion, however, the majority of “Nope” takes place on a remote horse ranch outside Los Angeles, allowing for the director to craft a domestic tale reminiscent of Shyamalan’s “Signs” minus the laughable last second twist.
The Shining (1980)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
influenced Us (2019), Nope (2022), Get Out (2017)
Themes Visuals
Peele’s homework for his sensational star, Lupita Nyong’o, included, according to Entertainment Weekly, “The Birds,” “The Shining,” “Dead Again,” the original “Funny Games,” “The Sixth Sense,” “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “Let the Right One In,” “The Babadook” and “It Follows.”
Nyong’o, already an Oscar winner for Twelve Years a Slave, should be in the running again for delivering one of the great performances in horror movie history, right up there with Sissy Spacek in Carrie and Jack Nicholson in The Shining.
Peele's new sophomore effort reflects shades, if seen from the right angle, of a host of other works: The Shining, Candyman, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Funny Games, The Funhouse, and a raft of others all feature — still without calling too much attention to themselves as part of its DNA — which places the emphasis more on execution than any high concept.
The director creates a compelling frisson between the normal on-screen behavior and the eerie visual aesthetic (lots of slow zooms and Steadicam shots reminiscent of Kubrick's The Shining), but it wears out its welcome before the plot advances.
The drive to their sun-and-fun home recalls similar rides in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, although Peele adds dad-joke levity with the ’90s Luniz tune “I Got 5 On It.”
Out of all the films that Us harkens back to, there are particular, noticeable influences of 1980’s The Shining, especially in the multi-faceted performance of Lupita Nyong’o, the literal duality of all the main characters and of course, we can’t forget about the twins.
It is kind of like a dark comic cross between “12 Years a Slave” and “The Man With Two Brains.”
Otras, como The Goonies (1985), C.H.U.D (1984) y The Man With Two Brains (1983), son referencias ricas para comprender de dónde salió la extraña inspiración de Jordan Peele.
An opening sequence depicting an 80s-vintage home entertainment console adorned with VHS tapes of C.H.U.D., The Goonies, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and The Man With Two Brains (in which Steve Martin is telepathically linked with a separate brain), serve to twitchily wink at the film’s notion of a bifurcated underworld/overworld structure.
Film fans may notice the VHS tapes framing the television, including C.H.U.D. , The Man with Two Brains , The Right Stuff , A Nightmare on Elm Street , and one of three Corey Haim references in the picture, The Goonies .
Clues are scattered throughout that ask us to look for some deep, hidden meaning – starting with the row of 1980s VHS tapes visible at the start of the film's prologue, from The Goonies to The Man With Two Brains .
The television set is framed by VHS tapes of '80s genre movies like C.H.U.D., The Goonies , and The Man With Two Brains , and the artifacts serve to make her reflective silent stare even more arresting.
The film’s next big set piece, the home invasion by the doppelgängers, is equally masterful, playing on the same fears of intrusion as “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “The Evil Dead” (1981), “Scream” (1996), “Funny Games” (1997), “The Others” (2001), “The Strangers” (2008) and “The Purge” (2013).
A 25-minute "Twilight Zone" episode couldn't include the character development and elaborate horror set pieces as a movie four times its length, so Peele also employs an expansive repertoire of references to other horror classics, particularly "The Strangers."
Their initial entrance into the Wilsons’ lives echoes home-invasion thrillers like The Strangers , and the later stalking sequences resemble It Follows in their particular combination of lurking, inevitable terror, and abrupt violence.
Starting off evocative of other terrifying home invasion narratives such as The Strangers and The Invitation, Peele’s second film, like Get Out, reveals its machinations originate in a landscape located somewhere between the realms of science fiction and fantasy.
As if Get Out wasn’t proof enough, in Us Peele shows off his horror vocabulary, referencing everything from The Strangers to The Twilight Zone —in fact , Us gives a really solid taste of what Peele can do with his Twilight Zone reboot—and he puts together some really tense sequences set to chef’s-kiss-level musical cues.
To call “Us” a movie about home invasion would be to oversimplify things, and gratefully, Peele’s effort is not a Santa Cruz echo of 2008’s “The Strangers,” which felt like an exercise in sadism.
As in Michael Haneke’s Funny Games (1997), there is the sense that the Wilsons simply deserve to be destroyed, because all bourgeois families are in possession of riches and comfort that are not rightfully theirs.
The drive to their sun-and-fun home recalls similar rides in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Michael Haneke’s Funny Games , although Peele adds dad-joke levity with the ’90s Luniz tune “I Got 5 On It.”
He mines the recent past to mock and challenge the present in a way that is already reminding me of Michael Haneke ( Funny Games , Cache , Amour) , but without the chilly sadism – and with far funkier soundtracks.
Lo que comienza como una variante fantástica de esas invasiones domésticas que tendrían al Funny Games (1997) de Michael Haneke como más ilustre exponente, pronto acaba derivando en una suerte de relato de ciencia ficción conspiratoria, deudor de aquellos que, protagonizados por entidades que suplantaban las identidades de los humanos (ya fuesen ultracuerpos o invasores de Marte), hicieron furor en la década de los 50.
The film’s next big set piece, the home invasion by the doppelgängers, is equally masterful, playing on the same fears of intrusion as “Night of the Living Dead” (1968), “The Evil Dead” (1981), “Scream” (1996), “Funny Games” (1997), “The Others” (2001), “The Strangers” (2008) and “The Purge” (2013).
For horror aficionados, the golf club used as a weapon might bring to mind Michael Haneke’s disturbing Funny Games, and a shot of black gloves may evoke a giallo predator.
Black Box (2020)
Directed by Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour, Jr.
influenced by Get Out (2017)
Themes Visuals Plot
In a lot of ways, Black Box is a marriage between 2017’s Get Out and an episode of Black Mirror .
The visualization of the contraption is reminiscent of the sunken place in Get Out (2017), but Osei-Kuffour’s scenario is comparable to Brandon Cronenberg’s recent Possessor (2020).
It’s more like a solid episode of Black Mirror , with some ideas and imagery pilfered from one of Blumhouse’s biggest hits, Get Out .
All this is prime Blumhouse material with faint parallels to Get Out , and for as long as explanations remain elusive, it's slick and compelling, bolstered by a very capable cast.
Or did they want to see what blending the medical elements in Upgrade and Get Out will bring to the table?
There are odes of J-horror and Get Out in Black Box , and themes that tie to The Lie in some pretty profound ways.
It’s also worth noting that for as “serious” as Nope is, there so many little touches that made it so enjoyable for me: it shows some love to The Scorpion King, there are a few hat tips to Us (I didn’t catch any for Get Out, but I’m excited to watch it again to see if I can find some nods the second time around), it features Corey Hart’s Sunglasses at Night in one of the film’s best sequences, it somehow thrusts Chris Kattan into hero status with a mere mention, and I’m sure it’s a reference to another movie, but there’s a motorbike rider who truly felt like he just rode right off the set of The Wraith, and all of that just made me giddy as someone who loves popular culture.
But Peele’s movie love, sincere and sometimes goofy as it is (watch for multiple nods to the Dwayne Johnson action vehicle “The Scorpion King”), also comes with a serrated edge.
On the surface, “Nope” is a thrilling time with extraordinary craft behind it and embellished with a myriad of curious homages to movies like “Akira” or even “The Scorpion King.”
Their father Otis (Keith David) promised her a horse of her own, but instead brought OJ in on training him for work on The Scorpion King , as a father-son project.
A long drive from the hubbub of Hollywood studio shoots, the Haywoods own a sprawling ranch, where they train horses to perform in commercials and movies like The Scorpion King .
There are also easter eggs to films such as Buck and the Preacher and The Scorpion King as well as anime such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and Akira .
I can certainly see why Jordan Peele got involved with this, as it has many of the elements he has used in his three movies: Get Out, Us, and Nope.
Essentially trading “Get Out” for “Get Off the Field,” Tipping’s second feature doesn’t seem capable of existing without its progenitor’s specific brand of off-kilter comedy-horror commentary on the commodification of Black bodies…
Him settles for being a copy of Whiplash in the style of Get Out, but doesn’t have an iota of the intelligence or horrifying elements to invest in.
Peele’s involvement raises expectations, yet this isn’t the next “Get Out” or “Us.”
However, Justin Tipping’s Him doesn’t have nearly the thematic ambition of the Peele-directed Nope and Get Out.
Hollywood has spent the years following Get Out (2017) trying to replicate its lightning in a bottle success to little avail, contrasting with Peele’s more ambitious follow-up films drifting further from punchy, unsubtle allegories.
Meanwhile, the pod people in “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”—first in 1956 and then, with an added dash of humor from which Peele has learned, in 1978—morphed into us, mocking our social conformity and daring us to tell the difference between human simulacra and the real thing.
Throughout the years, moviegoers have bitten their nails to The Student of Prague (1913), The Man With My Face (1951), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978), The Other, Sisters, The Stepford Wives (all from the 1970s), Mirrors (2008), Enemy (2013), and of course Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017).
Esta inquietud nace de otras influencias en el cine de horror con películas y series que muestran el miedo a encontrarse con uno mismo: ahí tenemos el episodio de “Mirror Image” de The Twilight Zone (1960), tenemos Dead Again de Kenneth Brannagh (1991), tenemos Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) o la muy inquietante Enemy (2013) de Denis Villeneuve.
“Us” borrows several tropes from such landmarks of the horror genre as George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” Don Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and Wes Craven’s “The Hills Have Eyes.”
Peele's uber-nerd cinephilia—the clever echoes of such horror-canon treasures as Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers , Stanley Kubrick's The Shining , George Romero's Day of the Dead , Michael Haneke's Funny Games , and on and on—is non-stop fun ("Isn't that the Lost Boys boardwalk?").
Cinephiles will also notice shades of Don Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” (1956), Michael Bay’s “The Island” (2005) and Charlie McDowell’s “The One I Love” (2014), which fittingly starred Elisabeth Moss (“Mad Men”) in a double role.
An ad for Hands opens Us, playing on a tube TV in an ’80s-era entertainment console, flanked by VHSes of The Goonies, C.H.U.D., and The Right Stuff.
Film fans may notice the VHS tapes framing the television, including C.H.U.D. , The Man with Two Brains , The Right Stuff , A Nightmare on Elm Street , and one of three Corey Haim references in the picture, The Goonies .
But Peele wants us to know that Us is taking place now, in this country (“We’re Americans…”), in a world with Michael Jackson T-shirts, mid-90s Oakland hip-hop, and two-VHS box-sets of Philip Kaufman’s The Right Stuff (1983).
Opening with a shot of a television surrounded by VHS tapes that tease at some of the film's possible inspirations ( C.H.U.D. , The Goonies , The Right Stuff ; which of these does not belong?)…
Arranged on the entertainment center shelves are video cassettes that include The Right Stuff (1983), The Goonies (1985), and – most salient to the story and themes of Us – Douglas Cheek’s cult horror-satire C.H.U.D. (1984).
Peele has said “Nope” was inspired by movies like “King Kong” and “Jurassic Park;” films that “really deal with the human addiction to spectacle.”
Spielberg also loves combining awe and dread, as seen in his earlier titles (“Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and even “E.T.”) and some of his later works (“Jurassic Park” and “War of the Worlds”); these sources of terror are also impressive unknowns that instill wonder as well as panic.
The shot recalls so many in Spielberg’s body of work that concentrates on the awed spectator rather than what caused such astonishment—think the terrified images of Chief Brody in Jaws when he sees the shark or when Alan and Ellie first see a dinosaur in Jurassic Park (1993).
Whether you’re in awe or anemic to Peele’s retreading of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” “Jaws,” “Jurassic Park,” etc., or his playful references to Shyamalan’s “Signs” there’s no doubt that Peele’s deference for those that came before and vision for his own films is committed.
It is a thriller in the summer blockbuster mode, in the spirit of Jaws , the original Jurassic Park and Twister .
One sequence which takes place at night and in the rain, and it feels impossible not to think of, say, the T-Rex escape in Jurassic Park , given the distance between the characters and the threat that looms over them both.
…this feels like the “Gordy” scene from Nope was expanded into 90 minutes…
Audiences with sensitivity toward animals whose wild instincts have been stifled by human intervention might see this as a cross between James Marsh’s soulful Project Nim and the terrifying sitcom chimp incident in Jordan Peele’s Nope.
Primate is a bit like that memorably gruesome sequence in Nope (2022) stretched out to feature length…
As anyone who has seen "Nope" can tell you, chimps are vicious and unpredictable when they get older.
Just don’t take anyone still having traumatic flashbacks to Nope’s opening sequence.
If you’ve ever wanted a full-length feature version of the “Gordy’s Home” scene in Nope, Primate is the movie for you.
Starting the film in Santa Cruz on the same boardwalk on which The Lost Boys was shot in 1986 is definitely not an accident.
Instead, it's remembered for The Lost Boys, which is just The Goonies wearing plastic vampire fangs.
As the film opens, we see young Adelaide watching her TV; on the shelf next to the TV are VHS tapes of films including The Goonies and C.H.U.D, soon after there’s a sneaky reference to The Lost Boys (which might go over some people’s heads, but is a lovely touch).
Peele sets a prologue on the 1986 Santa Cruz, Calif., boardwalk (site of the 1987 vampire flick “The Lost Boys,” as it happens), where a little girl named Adelaide (Madison Curry) wanders away from her parents and into a beachside house of mirrors with an unnerving secret.
The flick opens at a nighttime carnival in Santa Cruz in the mid-1980s ( The Lost Boys , anyone?).
Peele sets Us’ tone with a dark beginning on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk circa The Lost Boys.