The finite shelf life of Jordan Peele’s reverence for classic horror
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(Credit: Alamy)
It might sound harsh to suggest a filmmaker who’s only made three features, which happened to establish him as one of the genre’s freshest and most engaging new voices in a long time, runs the risk of stagnation hanging around too long. And yet, Jordan Peele will know he’ll have to broaden those horizons eventually.
Admittedly, there’s a sense of irony in an actor and writer best known for being one-half of a sketch comedy duo to suddenly emerge as one of scary cinema’s top-tier talents, but horror was always his first love. Comedy paid the bills, sure, but when Peele saw the chance to indulge his preferred mode of storytelling, he didn’t need to think twice.
Get Out was heralded as a 21st-century great, winning him an Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’ and earning nominations for ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’. Us was another critical and commercial success, and while Nope didn’t fare as well on either front compared to its predecessors, it marked an expansion nonetheless into Amblin-infused Spielbergian territory.
All three were deeply embedded in timely and resonant social, political, and societal themes, with modern America the commonality that unites them all. Horror has always been a favoured conduit to balance spectacle with relevant commentary, but few have managed to embrace both sides of the divide to unite crowd-pleasing spectacle, spine-tingling terror, and socio-political subversion to quite the same extent.
Peele’s trio has earned close to $700 million at the box office on combined production costs of under $100m, and being such a profitable chap lends itself well to boundless creative freedom. His fourth flick is scheduled to hit cinemas in October 2026, and while nobody knows anything about it, theorising it’ll be cut from the same cloth as the last three seems reasonable.
After all, even his non-directing efforts have been heavily steeped in his adoration for classic horror, whether it’s co-writing and producing the Candyman legacy sequel, serving as the host and narrator of the rebooted Twilight Zone, executive producing the short-lived Lovecraft Country, or backing 2025’s sports-based psychological terror Him.
Peele has openly referenced The Shining, HP Lovecraft, Poltergeist, and Jaws, and he responded to a lofty claim that he was the greatest director in the genre’s history by politely stating that “I will just not tolerate any John Carpenter slander.” It’s far too early to bestow him with that moniker, but every single auteur who became a legend of horror eventually expanded their worldview, and it didn’t work out for all of them.
George A Romero revolutionised the medium, but he struggled outside of his comfort zone, as did Tobe Hooper and Wes Craven to a certain extent. John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg, and Guillermo del Toro all thrived, though, with each of them cutting their teeth in horror before going on to become either incredibly successful, a box office goldmine, an awards season favourite, or a combination of all three.
Peele has shown more than enough to suggest that he could take on anything he wanted and make it work, but even he was dissuaded from taking a crack at the long-gestating live-action Akira. That’s understandable when it’s looking like a cursed undertaking, but he seems too smart, switched-on, and ambitious to let himself grow stale.
What does a Jordan Peele movie that isn’t horror look like? Nobody knows, and nobody’s going to find out until at least 2026. If his next film follows familiar patterns, then the wait will grow longer, but he can’t keep returning to the same well in perpetuity because it’s going to run dry eventually.
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