Twilight Zone's Jordan Peele Picks His 'Horror Movie Avengers'

CBR

Jordan Peele Assembles His 'Horror Movie Avengers'

By Shawn S. Lealos

Published Mar 7, 2019

Jordan Peele talks horror movies and who would be in his horror villain Avengers team.

Jordan Peele has become one of the top new faces of horror thanks to his critically acclaimed Get Out and this year's much-anticipated Us. He also has a reboot of The Twilight Zone coming to CBS All-Access, so he has an obvious love of the genre.

In a video feature with the Wall Street Journal, Peele sat down and answered some questions about his love of horror movies. He talked about his first horror movie memory, scariest villain, favorite genre trope and the best Final Girl, while also putting together his own Avengers team of horror villains.

Peele revealed the first horror movie he ever saw that really "got him" was The Fly, which he said was completely inappropriate for his age at the time. However, in an interesting observation, he also said he was not as scared after seeing it as he was beforehand -- something he said is the "power of horror."

While Peele admitted that Michael Myers was the scariest villain because he is curious more than he is evil, he did not place him in his Avengers team of movie monsters.

Instead, the icons he chose for the team were Freddy Krueger, Candyman and Chucky, while also adding one of the silver balls from Phantasm. He then topped it off with a Graboid from Tremors, which they would then all ride together.

He also said he doesn't like horror movies that take place in old, creepy houses. Instead, Peele prefers horror to take place in idyllic locations like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining -- a place where horror does not seem to fit in at all. It goes a long way to explain the locations Peele chose for both Get Out and Us.

As for his favorite Final Girl, he said there was only one choice: Jada Pinkett from Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight. She was the first black Final Girl he could remember in a horror movie. To wrap up, Peele listed Shelley Duvall as the best performance in any horror movie, calling her the scariest person in The Shining.

Written, directed and produced by Jordan Peele, Us stars Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Anna Diop, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Kara Hayward, Tim Heidecker and Shahadi Wright Joseph. It is scheduled to be released on March 22 in theaters everywhere.