Jordan Peele: Master of Intellectual Horror
From Get Out to Nope, Peele has redefined the horror genre with layers of social critique, satire, and psychological depth.
Not every director has the fortune of launching their career with the impact Jordan Peele had in 2017. The former actor, comedian, producer, and writer quickly established himself as an auteur and a defining cinematic voice right from his debut.
His Get Out struck the horror genre like a bolt from the blue—one that had previously been largely focused on blood and gore, fear and jump scares, but little more. The film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, an exceptional feat for a horror movie, which speaks volumes about its quality.
With a distinctive cinematic language, steady direction, surprising twists, and plot turns, Get Out did more than frighten—it made us think.
Intellectual Horror
If you search for the definition of “intellectual,” you’ll find that it refers to our ability to think independently, to recognize truths, and to reason through ideas. And that’s precisely what Jordan Peele’s films do.
They provoke thought, leading us to recognize the relevance and depth of their statements, before ultimately encouraging us to reason through the layers of meaning they present. In other words, Peele creates intellectual films wrapped in a pop-cultural style and format.
While it’s easy to focus on the obvious—like Peele placing Black actors in leading roles and using themes of racial criticism—there are many more subtle elements that define his directorial style. Of course, films with layered, “smart” suspense existed before Get Out, such as The Shining (1980) and Scream (1996), or more recent titles like Hereditary (2018) and It Follows (2014).
In It Follows, much of the tension stems from unseen forces and undefined threats passed through sexual contact—a stark contrast to a typical slasher chasing their victims with a knife.
A similar structure runs through Peele’s trilogy. We are confronted with something that we don’t initially understand, making the fear feel both abstract and uncontrollable. As the story unfolds, we begin to grasp more of what’s happening, but we’re also intellectually challenged to connect the dots ourselves, uncovering the deeper meanings buried within the films.
With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at Peele’s three films—examining their recurring themes, their ability to captivate and terrify, and the way they reflect our world and the times we live in.
But before we begin, this article includes spoilers for Get Out, Us and Nope.
Get Out (2017)
Jordan Peele’s directorial debut made an immediate impact due to its sharp storytelling, satirical layers, and surprising plot twists. The film introduces us to Chris Washington and his girlfriend, Rose Armitage, who are headed to her family’s house for a weekend visit. Her parents live on a secluded, picturesque estate, and both Chris and Rose expect a pleasant time with the Armitage family.
At first, Chris—who has never met Rose’s parents—brushes off their somewhat peculiar behavior, attributing it to unease over their daughter dating a Black man. As the weekend unfolds, however, Chris starts to notice more unsettling details. What begins as discomfort grows into disbelief and shock as the situation takes an increasingly surreal and horrifying turn.
The Armitage family’s outwardly polite appearance hides a disturbing fixation on race. The film explores the fetishization of Black bodies, which adds another layer to the narrative. Rather than expressing open hostility, the Armitages admire Black people for their physical traits, while simultaneously objectifying and dehumanizing them. This paradox makes the film’s depiction of racism particularly unsettling and thought-provoking.
As the story progresses, it’s revealed that the family has been transplanting their own minds into Black bodies to extend their lives. They see Black physicality as superior, making the pursuit of a so-called “superhuman” their ultimate goal. The grotesque nature of this plot twist adds a deeply disturbing dimension to their actions.
While the premise may seem exaggerated, it is firmly rooted in real historical and cultural issues. Racial tensions remain a pressing issue in the United States, and Peele’s exploration of everyday racism continues to feel relevant. The film draws on both historical references, such as slavery and segregation, and modern realities like police violence and systemic inequality.
As the horror in Get Out escalates, the narrative also delves into body horror and cultish worship. Peele’s use of cult themes calls to mind classic horror films like Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Ti West’s The House of the Devil (2009). However, Peele modernizes these tropes, placing them in a contemporary setting that feels more relatable—and therefore more unsettling.
The film’s most striking horror comes not from jump scares but from the everyday racism that Chris experiences. This is what makes the story so effective. Early in the film, Chris is asked to show his ID by a police officer, even though he isn’t the driver—a routine act of racial profiling. It’s a small moment, but one that establishes a lingering unease.
The discomfort deepens when Chris meets the Armitage family and notices that their household staff is entirely Black. The awkwardness of meeting a partner’s family, already nerve-wracking for many, becomes even more uncomfortable in this context. The tension builds as subtle discomfort gives way to shocking revelations and disturbing truths.
Ultimately, Get Out is less about traditional horror and more about creating a sense of moral and social unease. The film’s strength lies in its ability to weave everyday experiences of racism into a compelling thriller. It’s a carefully constructed work that rewards viewers who look for deeper meanings and connections.
Us (2019)
The difficult second film may not have generated the same buzz or media coverage as Get Out, but Us (2019) ended up being more engaging and captivating for this reviewer. There are several possible reasons for this. For one, Us feels more like a horror film in the traditional sense, with jump scares and outright frightening scenes. The story also unfolds across multiple locations, spans different time periods, and involves more characters, making the film feel richer and more multifaceted.
The plot centers on the Wilson family—mother, father, and two children—who are on a summer vacation in Santa Cruz, California, where they plan to spend time with some friends. One evening, a threatening family breaks into their vacation home, only to reveal themselves as exact copies of the Wilsons. For viewers, this invasion quickly becomes deeply unsettling, illustrating one of our greatest fears—that our private and personal lives, including our children, could be attacked by something terrifying from the outside. The fact that the intruders are doppelgängers adds a surreal twist that gives the story even more to chew on.
In Us, Peele draws both broad and subtle lines between archetypal American symbols and phenomena such as poverty, homelessness, music, culture, well-known vacation spots, and pop culture references. One notable example is the “Hands Across America” campaign—a 1986 fundraising event aimed at fighting hunger and homelessness in Africa and among the homeless in the U.S. This campaign reappears throughout the story and even closes the film, though with a twist.
The doppelgänger family claims they are bound to the Wilsons because they share the same soul and want to sever that connection, which leads to a violent confrontation. The Wilsons then discover that doppelgängers are killing their counterparts across the city and forming a chain of hands to block anyone from leaving or entering. The plot continues to add layers, revealing that the doubles were originally created by the U.S. government as a way to control their originals. When the project failed, the clones were abandoned underground, left to live in a vast network of tunnels, rooms, and passageways.
Another plot twist reveals that one of the main characters, played by Lupita Nyong’o, was kidnapped and swapped with her clone during childhood. Out of anger and a desire for revenge, the clone spent years underground organizing the attack on the surface world.
Peele often works with metaphors and allegories in his films, and Us is no exception. The film is, in many ways, about “Us versus Them.” The sci-fi classic Them! from 1954, which features giant ants attacking from underground tunnels, is an obvious reference that Peele is well aware of and uses consciously.
The title Us can also be read as US (United States), adding another layer of meaning. It suggests a portrait of the nation itself—an exploration of how Americans are complicit in their own destruction, both literally through the clones living underground and metaphorically through racism and social conflicts.
Some have interpreted Us as a self-portrait of the United States, showing how the country continues to harm itself from within, never learning from history or repeated tragedies and human behavior. The film captures this dynamic in several ways.
Us is filled with typical American pop culture references, including conspiracies, music, celebrities, TV shows, and films—none of which are accidental. These elements help to define the film’s distinctly American identity, grounding the story in a specific time, place, and cultural setting. This is part of what makes Us such a thematically rich and reference-heavy film.
By the end, viewers are left with countless thoughts racing through their minds, realizing they’ve just watched another challenging, densely layered, and impressive film from Peele. Us is a film so packed with details and meaning that you can study it for hours and still find new things to uncover.
Nope (2022)
Jordan Peele’s third film returned to a stronger focus on the mysterious and the supernatural. In Nope (2022), American themes once again take center stage: ranch life, horses, sharp dialogue between key characters, conspiracy theories, superstition, and UFOs. As with Peele’s previous films, the story is layered with details and open to multiple interpretations.
But Nope also stands out as an exceptionally beautiful film, featuring expansive, striking shots of the vast valley where the ranch is located. With renowned cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema behind the camera, the film gains an extra level of quality with compositions that perfectly capture the grandeur—and eerie ugliness—of the “monster” in the story.
The plot revolves around Otis Jr. and his sister, Emerald, who are left to run the sprawling Haywood Ranch after their father dies in a bizarre accident. One day, metal objects fall from the sky, and he is killed when a coin lodges in his skull. Left on their own, Otis and Emerald struggle to keep the family business afloat, which involves renting horses to Hollywood productions.
One day, they begin to notice strange phenomena in the sky above their ranch and decide to set up surveillance cameras on the property. Eventually, they realize that a massive, UFO-like creature is hiding behind a nearby cloud, emerging periodically to devour humans, horses, and other living creatures. It spits out metal and junk, which explains their father’s death at the start of the story.
Despite the surreal, sci-fi tone, Nope is also a human drama. Once again, family ties are central to the narrative, as are themes of survival, work, and making a living off the land. But there’s also a warning: if you’re greedy, reckless, or exploit nature, it will strike back—and in this case, it might even eat you.
The theme of exploiting nature appears in multiple ways. The film opens with a brutal scene where a chimpanzee attacks and kills actors on a TV set. A survivor from the same show later monetizes the incident by creating a museum about it and even putting on an outdoor show to summon the UFO.
Similarly, Otis and Emerald try to make a living from their horses, but they also see a lucrative opportunity in capturing the “impossible photo” of the UFO. They hope that such a photograph will prove the creature’s existence and bring them fame and fortune. The siblings even joke about landing a spot on The Oprah Winfrey Show. To achieve this, they hire a skilled documentary filmmaker, determined to capture that perfect shot.
Peele’s tribute to classic monster and sci-fi films is unmistakable, yet he gives the genre a modern twist. At its core, Nope is a story about the pursuit of fame, the desire to be seen and admired, and the greed that drives people to exploit nature and one another.
Much of this is reflected in Otis and Emerald’s realization that the UFO/creature won’t attack if they avoid looking directly at it. If they don’t stare, they won’t be eaten. The idea of avoiding direct confrontation becomes a key survival tactic in the film.
In the end, Nope examines humanity’s relentless pursuit of spectacle and recognition—at any cost. It’s a warning about how the desire to witness the extraordinary can blind us to the dangers right in front of us.
The Master of Modern Horror
From the gory slashers of the ’70s and ’80s, through the parodies and humor of the ’90s, and the torture-porn craze of the 2000s, to today’s era of intellectual horror. Jordan Peele has carved out a place in horror history by adding countless layers of satire, social critique, and cultural commentary to his films.
He blends these with a type of suspense often tied to family and close relationships—where a familiar sense of safety is pulled out from under us, and surreal elements take hold. In that sense, clear parallels can be drawn to another director: M. Night Shyamalan. Films like Signs (2002), Split (2016), and Old (2022) similarly lean heavily on the incredible and unexpected, where surreal and unforeseen horror takes center stage.
But let’s make one thing clear—failing to grasp all the layers of Peele’s films as you’re watching them, or even right afterward, doesn’t mean you’re clueless or out of your depth. This writer had plenty of questions in mind after seeing each of his films.
But, as is often the case with well-crafted, multi-layered stories, they invite intellectual engagement both during and after the viewing. The films stay with you, making you reflect and process their themes long after leaving the cinema or switching off the screen.
And that’s likely part of Peele’s intention. He wants to provoke and unsettle his audience—not just to scare them, but to engage them and spark debate on topics such as everyday racism, social attitudes, and cultural dynamics.
Jordan Peele is a master at handling layers, dimensions, and metaphors in a way that feels meticulously crafted and rich with meaning. His films are like cakes with countless layers, offering experiences that continue to unfold the more you engage with them. The effect isn’t fleeting—it endures.
One can only wonder what our era’s master of intellectual horror will surprise us with next.
This article was translated from the Norwegian orginal with the help of translation software.
 | A guest post by
|