The following contains spoilers for Nope, now playing in theaters.
In Jordan Peele's Nope, Daniel Kaluuya's OJ and Keke Palmer's Emerald were hellbent on capturing footage of a UFO stalking their Haywood ranch out in Agua Dulce. They knew this footage would make them big bucks, helping take them out of debt after their dad died months before. However, as their journey progressed, they realized the task was draining them mentally as much as it was physically.
In the process, the director carved out yet another suspenseful horror story that homaged masters of the craft. Steven Spielberg's Jaws was clearly an influence, while there were also nods to M. Night Shyamalan and John Carpenter along the way. Interestingly, after they got the tech expert, Angel, to help out, Nope paid homage to Stanley Kubrick by remixing The Shining's most horrific scene. But in Peele's case, he made it a lot scarier.
It was the iconic blood-gushing sequence where Kubrick had Wendy encountering a ghastly elevator in The Shining's finale. Holding a knife after her husband, Jack, lost control, she came across the elevator that led to one of cinema's most iconic moments. A river of blood rushed out, and Wendy's visions, especially this crimson cascade, nodded to the spiritual moments Danny had earlier in the film. It was terrifying, evoking a sense of fright few directors have captured since.
Well, Peele topped it when OJ and Emerald's house came under attack. It occurred after the UFO, which turned out to be an alien, devoured people at Jupiter's Claim, a Western theme park in town. The being came over the farm, which caused power to go, and then began excreting blood and guts all over the house. But due to the inorganic material it ate, including a metal horse, it couldn't digest everything, so it used the farm as a toilet.
The dark lighting, the tension with the siblings at home, and the sound really upped the horror factor. At this point, it wasn't clear if the UFO would suck them up as well, so all of this eerie anticipation built the scene better, making it more unpredictable. And as cerebral as this moment was, it also felt real, which heightened the movie's monstrous aesthetic, making the threat tangible.
Fortunately, the alien flew off, leaving its signature behind and reminding the siblings it was still hungry. It could be that it was marking its territory or intimidating the siblings to let them know the farm would be next on the docket. Either way, this shower of blood elevated what Kubrick did and confirmed Peele as a modern artist who knew exactly how to build on spectacle and brilliant artistic moments of old.
See The Shining's bloodbath get upgraded in Nope, now in theaters.