Nope. Another horror film from modern-day marvel of media Jordan Peele, director of the universally-critically acclaimed Get Out (2017), which also stars Daniel Kaluuya. I did see, and enjoy, Get Out shortly after its release, so was hoping for a similar experience.

Nope.

I liked this film. In many ways this makes me want to avoid the ‘horror’ question entirely, but I’m sure it’ll come up. The scenery and general landscape cinematography are really nice. There are some mysterious things going on. The acting’s great and largely believable. The story is quite fun. There are confusing parts and, if pushed, I would say the film was more science-fiction than horror, but that’s what I’ve come to expect this month.

What are the best bits (intentionally-vague slight-spoilers)? The whole ranch setting is good and naturally lends itself to being creepy. The film also harnesses the fear factor of natural weather systems when living in an isolated area, particularly when they become unnatural. Horses are great actors, they really nail either calm or terrified, and are great for heightening the mood of the piece. The film sets up nicely for a climactic ‘showdown’ which all makes sense. The ‘nope’ motif is good, especially as it often contravenes the recognised horror film cliche of going into somewhere, or doing something, which is a blatantly a terrible idea.

What are the worst bits? In no particular order… Not sure what the whole Gordy thing was about; if it was just to create a sinister atmosphere, it seems entirely unnecessary. Not sure why Antlers Holst was there; we all want Michael Wincott in the film but I’m not sure anyone knew what to do with him and he had to make an unjustifiably bad decision just to get him back out of the film again. Also, like many of the characters, he was difficult to listen to. Not sure if this was a sound mixing issue, a problem with the version I watched, or whether the actors were asked to speak in a particularly growly (Antlers), low-key (OJ) or fast-paced (Em) way, but some of the dialogue escaped me. Once we got past the creepy section into the monster section, the monster was not frightening. The ‘guts’ scenes were just (I can only assume intentionally) rubbish.

So more bad then good? No. The film is still good. The horror aspects are not great. It’s not very frightening. There are not a lot of jump-scares. The gore is fairly minimal. The monster is not frightening. The Gordy section is one of the more unsettling aspects although it is so incidental and only tangentially-related as to almost appear like a Twilight-Zone-esque short-story within a story. But the film is good enough.

Surely you’re going to set yourself up with a question that invites a quote-unquote hilarious pun answer? Nope.