Jordan Peele posts Nope hashtag with video of creepy bird disaster
What can Peele's use of a viral news clip tell us about Nope?
Aux News Peele
Jordan Peele released the trailer for his new movie Nope last weekend, introducing horror fans to Hollywood’s only Black-owned ranch of horse trainers, that chromed-out motorcycle rider, and the idea of a “bad miracle,” but we still don’t have any real clue about what Nope is about—beyond some spooky shit happening in the sky. Well, Peele seemingly offered a little clue the other day, and it involves some spooky shit happening in the sky.
On Twitter, Peele shared a clip (with a Nope hashtag) from Today about a strange phenomenon in Mexico recently in which a huge number of birds suddenly (and seemingly inexplicably) dropped out of the sky. Some flew away right after, but others… did not. Suffice to say, it’s not an especially fun video, and if you have any fondness for our fine feathered friends, you can probably do without watching it.
It’s almost certainly not a piece of bizarre viral marketing (again, some of the birds do not get back up), but it definitely has a similar vibe to what happens in the Nope trailer. So what can it tell us about Nope? For one thing, there’s… uh, spooky shit happening in the sky? And… that’s where birds live?
Okay, we’re grasping at straws here, but The Guardian says that scientists believe the dramatic bird incident was likely caused by a pursuing predator, like a hawk, and that a large flock of birds accidentally collided with the ground while running away (flying away). The reason there’s such a large group of birds at all is that they were probably “murmurating,” which is that thing you’ve seen birds do in all sorts of spooky stories. They were probably flying around in one big group in hopes of distracting the predator.
So, if Get Out was about mind-controlling, body-stealing white people and Us was about abandoned doppelgängers living underground, perhaps the threat in Nope is…a predator bird, like a hawk. It’s flying through the air, cutting off the power, snatching up flags, scaring those inflatable waving tube men. Yeah, that’s gotta be it.
37 Comments
Finally, the Birdemic reboot we hoped and prayed for.
#solrpanls
Birds aren’t real.
If birds aren’t real, how can they be so angry?
They can’t be angry if they’re not real.
*Bjirds
This viral marketing stunt has gotten out of hand, just murdering birds to sell tickets like that.
Yeah viral promotions in general have gone too far. Like I was excited for Spider-Man No Way Home but I think they took it a little far when Willem Dafoe bombed a highway as promotion.
Is ‘viral promotion’ like the next newest mutant variant strain of the VID’s?
I thought that was a clever pivot by the marketers to implement whatever Dafoe happened to be doing that weekend.
Lost three cousins that day but you know what? Worth it for the autograph he gave me afterward.
To be fair to Ole Willie, those people on that highway were rubberneckers who didn’t just drive pass the car accident. So he was doing as a favor by blowing them up. He’s a good guy!
His use of this can tell us that Nope is going to be an atmospheric horror based on the realistic creepiness of planet Earth and its natural phenomena. I’m down.
Someone call Ethan Thomas!
I mean, stuff happens. Like this meat shower.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_meat_shower
Ah, the ol’ Kentucky meat shower… I saw a movie about that once, looked terribly crowded, but the actors seemed to enjoy it.
Kentucky Meat Shower sounds like a sex act.
Gobbets of meat…? Falling from the sky?Hmm. Doesn’t taste like Buckley,
Didn’t they do that on WKRP?
Pretty lame stuff
That is freaky deaky.
I can’t wait for the eventual sequel, which will be entitled YUP!
Then the third film will be “MM-HMM”.
Billy Bob Thorton did that in ‘96!
Christ that movie does not seem that oldNow that I think about it though, it features a preteen who doesn’t have a phone in their hand for the entire runtime, so yeah it’s old
I looked it up to check and I did a little double take
NUH-UH
Next will be “D’OH!”
All setting up the King of the Hill cinematic universe
I can’t believe J. Jonah Jameson outed Dale as Rusty Shackleford!
*BURP*
‘scuse me.
Band name du jour: Creepy Bird Disaster
Coupon: The Movie: The Ride*Wails uncontrollably “Why does this keep happening?!?!?”
I mean, if we’re going to keep with the theme it’d have to be a giant mutant Bald Eagle, right?
It’s possible to tease people too much.
don’t like this story anymore.
Both Get Out and (especially) US fall apart logically under the slightest of scrutiny, so I’m guessing what whatever it is, it’s not going to make a lot of sense, and seem like the first or second draft of an interesting idea that really could have used more work.Get Out caught the zeitgeist so it gets a pass, but US truly sucks, a dumb, silly movie that only received praise because of its weighty themes. After that disaster this one definitely earns its title for me.