RELATED: The Best Horror Movies That Don’t Use Jump Scares
The Haywood Ranch is a place where horses get trained and then used in Hollywood movies. This is something that happens every day in reality. However, Nope is not a movie about the inner workings of movie production. There’s something not right about the Haywood Ranch. Does everything make sense by the end of this new horror thriller? No, so let’s break down the movie with some spoilers.
6 Keeping The Nickel Is A Little Messed Up
It was surprising to see Keith David playing OJ’s father since he wasn’t in the trailers. David is a legendary actor whether he is in films or doing voice-over for cartoons or video games. How he was killed is something no one could have guessed.
Not even the greatest detective could have solved how a nickel went through Otis’ eyeball and into his brain. The movie claims loose change fell out of a plane which is a wild thing to say. Who would buy that? The senseless thing about this whole scenario though is OJ keeping the nickel and hanging it on his wall. Who would want to keep the murder weapon that killed their father?
5 The Gordy’s Home Massacre
Gordy’s Home is a sitcom that starred a chimp living with a family that took him in during the 90s. The show was made up for Nope as an in-universe joke. Ricky, who was on the show as a kid, lived to tell the tale of a certain massacre that took place. One day a balloon popped which caused Gordy to go ape and start hurting people.
Nope cuts back to this incident several times. The most haunting one shows Ricky under the table with Gordy devouring either the mom or sister. Then the father comes out and gets attacked as well. Why was Gordy able to attack so many people? Why was there no animal wrangler on the set who was ready to tranquilize the chimpanzee actor if he ever did go wild?
4 Ricky’s Boys
Fans could have guessed, from the trailers, that this movie was going to involve aliens in some fashion. Would they look like aliens in other films or would there be a twist on their design? The latter seems to be what Nope went for which was an interesting idea.
The film gives the audience a red herring before this ship-like alien is revealed though. When OJ is investigating one of the stables, three aliens pop out and start chasing him. The costumes looked authentic but it turns out it was just Ricky’s kids. The costumes were part of the Jupiter’s Claim show. Why would these boys do that to OJ and did Ricky put them up to it? Also, was it because they knew Em stole the horse? It doesn’t make any sense to terrorize OJ in the way they did.
3 Why Weren’t The Police More Involved?
OJ and Em not wanting to get the police or the news involved after their first couple of weird incidents makes sense. They wanted to capture footage of the aliens themselves and cash in on the footage. That seems to be Em’s big plan anyway and OJ is seemingly just along for the ride.
What doesn’t add up is why the police or news didn’t investigate the Haywood Ranch after Jupiter’s Claim was massacred. They showed up at the end which seems like too little too late. The Haywood Ranch is practically next door to the rodeo and a good detective or police unit would follow up on that. The TMZ guy is the closest thing that comes in the form of a news spy in Nope. How he knew as much as he did is never explained though and gent a bit rushed.
2 Don’t Look At It
OJ figuring out that they shouldn’t look at the alien doesn’t make sense for a couple of reasons. He has a flashback to the film set wherein his horse freaked out because it saw its reflection. Horses are known to do that so it is not strange when it happens in Nope.
RELATED: The Best Horror Movies On Hulu
There are a lot of animals that people are warned not to look directly at or else they might attack. This is not an animal though so much as it is an intelligent alien entity. Why would an alien behave like a lowly animal like a horse and only eat things if they looked at it? Also, why did Antlers Holst kill himself? Was he trying to get a good shot? If so, did he not realize his film would be digested anyway? That’s another weird mystery in the movie.
1 The Alien’s Motives
Animals want to do one thing in the wild: survive. They need shelter and food and perhaps that is also what this squid-like alien wanted. Wherever it came from it liked eating horses but was that all it wanted to do? Could this alien have been scouting Earth out for a future invasion and was just eating to pass the time?
That is a whole other topic centered around Nope’s mysteries. The odd thing about the whole entity is its powers and habits. If it wanted food, then why not go to a populated city? Why was it able to disrupt electricity when it was near sometimes and not other times. The movie played fast and loose with its powers and purpose, leaving much to the imagination. Imagination is what makes a horror movie good, but there needs to be a good balance.
MORE: The Greatest Werewolf Movies Ever, Ranked
