Nolan expressed his intention to produce a horror picture at the British picture Institute on Thursday, giving him another genre to master. Nolan has previously left his mark on superheroes (hello, The Dark Knight trilogy), sci-fi (Inception, Interstellar, Tenet), and biopics (his much acclaimed Oppenheimer), and he is well-equipped to put his own perspective on horror.
“I think horror films are very interesting because they depend on very cinematic devices,” he stated during his interview at the BFI. “It’s basically about [eliciting] a gut reaction to things. So, at some time, I would like to make a horror film. However, I believe that a truly great horror picture necessitates an amazing premise, which are few and far between these days. So yet, I haven’t discovered a tale that lends itself to that. However, I believe it is a really intriguing genre from a cinematic perspective. It’s also one of the only genres in which the studios produce a lot of these films, which are dark and abstract. They have a lot of elements that Hollywood is often reluctant to incorporate into films, but that’s one genre where it’s OK.”
Christopher Nolan went on to argue that there is undoubtedly a case to be made that Oppenheimer served in part as a horror film.
“Certainly Oppenheimer has elements of horror — which I definitely think is appropriate for the subject matter,” he went on to say. “The center of the film is mainly based on the heist genre, while the final act is a courtroom drama. And I chose those two genres for those portions because they are prominent genres in which dialogue and people conversing are naturally tense and engaging to an audience. That’s the exciting part about genre: you can experiment in a variety of ways that you wouldn’t be able to do in other types of films.”
Many auteurs have left their mark on the horror genre, notably Jordan Peele, whose Get Out and Us were horror films that could only have been done by him. Nolan is another director who can take any genre and make it personal and unique. There’s no question that any studio, and any film fan, would be ecstatic for him to take on one of cinema’s most adored and daring genres.
Iqra Khan