Director Christopher Nolan spoke in an interview about his upcoming film Oppenheimer. He explained why his historical drama can also be seen as a horror film.
With Oppenheimer, the latest film by Christopher Nolan will be released in theaters on July 20, 2023. The director is already world-renowned for massive blockbusters like Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), and Tenet (2020).
Oppenheimer revolves around the renowned physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the invention of the atomic bomb during World War II; a very heavy topic that probably affected the first viewers of the film quite deeply.
Here you can see a trailer for Oppenheimer:
“It’s an intense experience because it’s an intense story”
In an interview with the American magazine Wired, Christopher Nolan spoke about his upcoming historical drama.
The director explained that his film is very dark and emotionally crushing due to its themes:
It’s an intense experience because it’s an intense story. I recently showed it to a filmmaker who said it’s a kind of horror film. I cannot disagree with that.
It’s interesting that you mentioned the word nihilism earlier, as I believe I hadn’t managed to name it.
But as I began to finish the film, I started to feel this color that doesn’t appear in my other films, just darkness. It is there. The film struggles with it.
via wired.com
But not only did the other filmmaker get emotionally impacted by the film. For some early viewing audience members, Oppenheimer was probably an intense experience as well. Christopher Nolan shared:
“Some people leave the film completely devastated. They can’t speak. I mean, there is an element of fear that is present in the story and subtly underlying it. […].”
However, the story does not only revolve around the crushing events but also the characters and their relationships with one another, which was very important to the director.
How does the community react to the interview? On reddit users commented on the interview. Many people think that HBO’s series Chernobyl could also pass as horror and describe which scene was the scariest for them.
Other users say they would like to see new genres from Nolan, such as a true horror film under his direction:
- AH_DaniHodd: “Inception was originally going to be a horror film. I would really like to see Nolan make a proper horror film one day.”
- ToYouItReaches: “HBO’s Chernobyl could, in my opinion, also be considered horror,”
- Aramiss134: “The scene [in Chernobyl] where people go underwater is by far one of the most thrilling and terrifying scenes I have seen in recent years.”
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