Few new voices in the horror sphere have made as much of an instant impact as Jordan Peele – the actor and comedian turned director, who delivered one of the most iconic scary movies of the last decade with Get Out, and followed it up with a fascinating doppelgänger slasher riff in Us. Now, he’s readying his third film, and it has another succinct, sly title: Nope. As in, the thing you say to yourself quietly under your breath in the cinema when a character splits of from their group to ‘investigate’, or steps on a tuft of grass that surely has a bear trap or something horrible hiding underneath it: nope. Check out the mysterious poster here.
In true Peele style, we really barely know anything about this one – but that tagline promises not just horror, but ‘terror’ from the filmmaker. And that central image is surely rife with symbolism that’ll become much clearer down the line – a storm cloud lingering ominously above a town, with a line of colourful bunting flowing from it. If Peele has excelled at anything in his films so far, it’s the captivating imagery – from the Sunken Place sequence, to the red jumpsuits and gold scissors of Us, to that film’s spine-tingling epic final shot. Here's hoping that continues in Nope.
What else do we know, then? Well, as the cast line-up tells us, Peele is reteaming with Daniel Kaluuya (in itself very exciting), as well as The Old Guard's KiKi Layne, and Minari and The Walking Dead star Steven Yeun. Beyond that, it’s mainly just the release date, with Peele having the clout to pull off that rare feat: a major original summer tentpole movie. Nope is set to hit cinemas on 22 July next year – in fact, a year from today. You bring the terror, we’ll bring the ‘nope’s.