Opening with a Bible passage from Nahum Chapter 3, Verse 6 — “I will pelt you with filth, I will treat you with contempt and make you a spectacle” — Jordan Peele’s third film, Nope, is a lot of things: an examination of man versus nature, a story of trying to move on after the death of a parent, and, oh yeah, an exhilarating horror-infused romp, focused around a mysterious and deadly invader from (one assumes) outer space.
Peele keeps things pretty close to the chest as to the origins of his central creation, instead putting the focus on how Southern California horse trainer O.J. (Daniel Kaluuya), his sister Emerald (Keke Palmer), an electronics store employee named Angel (Brandon Perea), and determined cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott) team up to not just survive the attacks of the creature, but get the “Oprah shot” proving its existence.
So, let’s start at the beginning…
[Editor’s note: The following contains spoilers for Nope.]
What (or Who) Killed O.J. and Emerald’s Father?
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Keith David’s Otis Haywood Sr., descended from a long line of Black Hollywood horse trainers, doesn’t get much screen time, but his introduction is pretty memorable — in the opening sequence, we see him engage with his taciturn son before an unexpected rain of objects descends upon the area. A metal coin penetrates Otis’s skull, right through the eye, and while he stays alive long enough for OJ to bring him to the hospital, he unfortunately doesn’t make it in the end.
The official verdict on Otis’s death is that the coin was part of debris from a passing prop plane — Ghost, the horse that Otis was sitting on at the moment of impact, also ended up with a key lodged in his flank. But by the end of the film it’s clear that the debris came from the “cloud” which had just arrived in the area. Six months after his death, we realize, the coin and key likely belonged to one of the alien’s first victims.
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Tagged: Alternative Music, FEATURES, Film, Jordan Peele, music blog, Nope