The Shrine

Jordan Peele, right now, is one of my four favourite horror film directors (I’ll talk about the other three briefly at the bottom). I really enjoy the gen-X feel to his films, they’re both well crafted and vaguely nostalgic.

Probably not the most popular opinion, but I enjoyed the film Us more than Get Out, I found it to be an improvement, and a more thrilling film. And I’m really excited for Nope.

Daniel Kaluuya stars in it. For those who don’t know him, he starred in Get Out and is a large reason why I think people loved the film so much. He also starred in the Black Mirror episode Fifteen Million Merits, which was my favourite episode of the first season.

Steven Yuen, who is best known for playing the role of the fan favourite character Glenn in The Walking Dead.

Michael Wincott, who played Guy in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves (the Cousin of Nottingham, who got cut his heart out with a knife, and not a spoon).

Keith David, who plays Childs in John Carpenter’s The Thing—another one of my all time favourite horror films. I watch this one almost every year at Halloween and/or Christmas.

Should be great, I’m really digging this cast. Other than that, I don’t know much about the film. It comes out July 22.


Oh yeah! The other three horror film directors I like right now:
Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar)
James Wan (Conjuring, Insidious, Saw)
Robert Eggers (The Witch, the Lighthouse)

Now that I’ve seen it. - and stop reading here if you want to watch it blind. Otherwise, I’ll focus on structure, references, and minor details rather than pivotal plot details.

It’s more of an experimental film, maybe not to the degree of Antonioni or Ingmar Bergman, but definitely not fitting the norm of the modern formulaic theatre-churn. It also has a really strong Outer Limits feeling to it—although, maybe Twilight Zone, but I grew up with Outer Limits and I’m fairly sure Jordan Peele did too.

The film goes for a more episodic approach, kind of like an Oliver Stone, David Lynch, or earlier Tarantino film. It’s bunch of shorts surrounding the characters and how they feed into the overall main arc. The implied sub-genre also changes throughout, usually corresponding to the episode. So the first one focuses on a horse called Ghost, the episode tag is just “Ghost” and it’s a bit of a ghost story. Next is “Clover” referencing Cloverfield… although, there are a number of Cloverfield stylistic choices through the film.

I’m not sure if they changed the film speed up from 24 to 60 frames per second or if it was just the lighting, but it seemed they used different types of cameras that effected the mood of the scene.

There are Gen X and Cusper gen anime references like Akira and Neon Genesis.

My opinion so far is better than Get Out, but below Us—although, that could change on subsequent viewings because I find films like Nope get more mileage on rewatches because there’s more to dig out from them. It’s also hard to compare it to “Us” on a single viewing because Us is a straight up thriller, while this one carries itself at a slower pace, more like sci-fi horror along the lines of (as I mentioned earlier) The Outer Limits. Another reason is this is a film that requires more than one go. The first half focuses more on the smaller subplots while the main plot - which is a slay the dragons story, lurks underneath - on a second viewing, that main plot is going to be much more in the foreground. It’s got a few layers on it, and is twisted emotionally and thematically by the different genres and plots surrounding it—and stylistically, the nature of the dragon reflects that.

If you’re looking for straight up horror thriller or action, there are segments that dive into that.

Get Out I feel like I over-appreciated because of all the hype surrounding it, but watching it again later I was kind of underwhelmed—although, the film still one of the best debuts, IMO, only Aster (Hereditary) and Eggers (The Witch) top it in recent times. I also think the social commentary gave it mass appeal—but that’s the easy Spielberg route… I think I have a greater appreciation for the films that trend a more dangerous David Lynch route and do a lot of interesting stuff I haven’t seen before or have seen little of.

Would I recommend this film? If you’re looking for something different, certainly! If you’re looking for a more standard 1-dimensional 3-act “you’ve seen this story thousands of times before” type film, probably not.

There are two main types of film viewers, those who like unique and varied experiences, and those who want the same thing over and over again—and a lot of this is programming. People who watch a lot of different types of films train themselves to want something different, and get bored when they see the same predictable thing. Then there are those who train themselves by watching the same types of film (your standard Hollywood blockbusters, cartoons, and rom coms), and it confuses them (like the hosts in Westworld) when a film ventures outside of the standard Hollywood industry formula (basically, MCU films). Many lie somewhere in the middle, and enjoy films that kind of reside in the middle the most (so, something around your Scorsese/Fincher films, and certain anime flicks like those by Satoshi Kon).