Though it’s his first, many fans agree that Get Out is the best of Jordan Peele’s movies. At the same time, Peele’s career as a director is still young, and it's conceivable he will have better films around the corner. But it’s hard to deny that the man delivered a force of a first movie. The Oscar-winning mystery thriller is not only chock full of social commentary, but it’s also full of nail-bitingly tense moments, making it quite possibly one of the best horror movies of the last ten years. The movie might have been critically well-received, but as it turns out, not everyone loved it or what the film had to say. As a matter of fact, the director says he still gets hate about his directorial debut, and he explains why.
Peele recently appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah to promote his most recent directorial effort, this year’s Nope, and the upcoming horror podcast Quiet Part Loud, produced by his production company Monkey Paw. The show’s host asked the director if he felt pressure to continuously create the best horror films since Get Out was so well-received and loved by moviegoers. The line of questioning prompted Peele to reveal that some people hate his first movie, and he thinks he knows why; they don’t like the agency his first success gave him. He said:
A lot of people hate Get Out. They are out there. I still get hate from that era. There’s a lot of people that don’t like the agency that it brought me and other people. I truly feel that. And in Key & Peele too. You realize people are going to respond, but there’s always going to be people that don’t respond. And that’s ok, that’s part of the adventure of doing something risky, something you’re not supposed to do, is that you’re going to pissing people off. But that’s ok.
Noah dug into this line of thinking a bit deeper. The host asked Peele if he believes what “pisses people off” is the truths about society he exposes in the types of stories he tells, such as his tendency to “weave” themes of race and gender within the fabric of a horror film. The actor-turned-director seemed to agree with the talk show host, joking about Get Out being a documentary before stating that his films try to depict the nature of the real world. Peele also explained Nope, which divided some critics, came from wanting to speak about the danger of spectacle. He continued:
Which is very much the real world. [Jokingly] It’s [Get Out] once again, a documentary, but no. This one [Nope] wanted to be about this idea that was sort of forming in my head that there’s some people, there are some things in this world that are these bad miracles. These are these things that are so entertaining that we’re blinded to the danger of them. I wanted to make a film about the human response to these things and how we interact with it, and how we chase it off a cliff
What makes Jordan Peele so exciting as a director and potentially so divisive is the same thing: his willingness to take big swings while pointing at the uglier sides of human nature. Whether you hate his movies or think they’re the best films ever made, it’s impossible to argue that they aren’t saying something interesting about the human condition. But why take my word for it? Nope hits streaming on November 18th. All you need to make up your own mind is a Peacock subscription.
The narrative podcast Quiet Part Loud is the next horror project coming from Peele’s production company, Monkey Paw. The Podcast stars Tracy Letts (The Big Short), Arian Moayed (Succession), Christina Hendricks (Mad Men), and Taran Killam (Killing Gunther). The story will focus on a conservative talk show host who has been de-platformed after spreading xenophobic messages to his listeners post-9/11. Peele, who is executive producing, has been quoted as saying, “they’re aiming to make the scariest podcast ever.”
Podcast and Jordan Peele fans can find out when The Quiet Part Loud drops on Spotify on November 15th. Until then, horror fans might be interested in our list of upcoming horror movies.
