As a longtime member of Team CinemaBlend, I am rarely happier than when actors and filmmakers who aren’t known for horror projects voice their desires to make spooky movies. Such splendor usually doesn’t happen with name as big as Christopher Nolan, but the Odyssey director and current box office king is apparently down and eager to get behind the camera for a new horror movie.
Nolan’s admission is heavenly music to my ears, even if Hans Zimmer’s “bwomp” bass is also back there somewhere. The director, who didn’t shy away from horrific imagery in his adaptation of Homer’s epic, voiced his feelings about potentially bringing his talents to horror storytelling with The Empire Film Podcast (via Spotify), saying:
I’ve always been interested in doing a horror film. But horror is most successful when the conceptual framework of whatever the story is is just so undeniable. I think there are very few really great horror movies.
Now, I’m not going to pick a fight with the Oscar winner for that blanketed assessment about the number of “really great horror movies” out there. In comparison to the vast overall number of movies that have been produced, then yes, there are relatively few. But “very few” implies a number lower than I’m willing to accept. That said, I would give my third and fourth eyes to know which horror movies he does consider to be really great, and how many of them rank among CinemaBlend’s Best Horror Movies rankings.
One might ask, “If Chris Nolan wants to make a horror movie, what’s actually stopping him?” And the answer to that question is apparently the Brit’s ability to find the right source material. As he explained:
I’ve never clicked with a particular idea or concept that worked for me. I love the genre. Of all genres, it’s the most visceral. Where the direct response to the audience is the most important. That is to say, you’re trying to make people literally feel something in their bones about what’s going on on-screen.
Considering how much technical wizardry Nolan brings to his films, with IMAX cameras often getting a big focus, I can certainly get how the vast majority of horror narratives might not scale up to what he's used to working with. I can't imagine he'd sign up for any kind of limited-location project in the vein of Exit 8 or Cube, and almost definitely wouldn't be interested in going the found-footage route for a Blair Witch update. (I know one already exists, but I'm just brainstorming.)
As such, it stands to reason that Nolan would be most interested in telling an expansive and layered horror story that wouldn't feel so out of placed paired up with one of his non-epics such as Memento or Insomnia, or possibly even Inception, Interstellar or The Dark Knight. Much as I'd love to believe that A Nightmare on Elm Street fits that bill, I don't foresee Nolan following in Wes Craven's footsteps.
But I do have several ideas in mind for horror projects that the Oppenheimer director could knock out of the park if he ever invested his creative efforts into them. Since I can't very well get inside his brain to determine what kinds of original genre stories he might have kicking around, I opted for a list of novel and comic books that I think would make for solid gold Nolan adaptations.
- House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski - House of Leaves is largely considered an unfilmable tome, given the multiple narratives and timelines being depicted through the core text and the ever-present footnotes. But if there's anyone who can pull off the haunting tale of a man who loses himself inside his increasingly expanding home, it's Nolan.
- American Vampire by Scott Snyder, Stephen King & Rafael Albuquerque - While I'd love to throw several Stephen King works out as potential adaptation fare, his folksy charms don't necessarily mesh with Nolan's. Instead, I think this historical approach to vampires in America would lend itself well to the director's talents, and it's definitely different enough from Sinners to not worry about overlap.
- Gideon Falls by Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino- Gideon Falls is perhaps my favorite horror comic, written and illustrated by perhaps my favorite writer and artist. So I'd probably slap it into every list I can think of, but I actually do think its massive story about a black barn and those haunted by it (to say the least) would be glorious putty in Nolan's hands.
- A Walk Through Hell by Garth Ennis & Goran Sudžuka - This disturbing tale sees FBI agents taking on the most baffling and depraved case of their careers, and delivers genre thrills while also tapping into true crime elements.
- Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay - Few horror stories get more widescale than tales about infectious outbreaks, and this one comes from one of the best horror authors working, Paul Tremblay.
- Fatale by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips - Brubaker & Phillips are best known for Criminal, but they bring the supernatural and old Holllywood into their neo-noir storytelling for Fatale, which centers on a seemingly immortal woman whom men can't help but desire, except for those in the cult trying to kill her.
- Annihilation (All the Southern Reach books, really) by Jeff VanderMeer - Yes, the first of this unnerving quartet of novels was already adapted by Alex Garland in 2018, but that film was not built to tell the entire story, and left a lot of disturbing details by the wayside as a result. With Nolan's brains and budgetary command, Area X could live anew and better than ever.
I could easily keep coming up with new examples of horror movies that Christopher Nolan should make, but I should probably save my energy to pitch one of these in person whenever I next share an elevator with him. Which will definitely be around a quarter to never, so wishful thinking is what I'll be resting my laurels on in the days to come.
While waiting for him to announce his next project, join the many in seeing The Odyssey currently in theaters.
