It鈥檚 been , but there鈥檚 been no shortage of monosyllabically titled thrillers set in the outdoors. started streaming on Hulu last month, hit theaters on August 12, and premiered last Friday. All three films are human vs. nature (or alien?) stories designed to prickle the sweat glands underneath your arms and make you grip the edge of your seat as you watch the heroes fight to survive something scary or horrible far away from cell service. But not all monosyllabically titled thrillers set in the outdoors are created equal. Here鈥檚 our take on which ones are worth the heightened heart rate, and which ones to skip.

Beast

In this animal revenge tale, widower Dr. Nate Daniels (Idris Elba) takes his two daughters (Meredith and Nora Samuels) to their mother鈥檚 home country of South Africa to visit a white Afrikaner family friend named Martin (Sharlto Copley). Martin turns out to be a low-rent Crocodile Dundee working with lions on a game reserve. I was lucky enough to see this movie in a theater with lots of other Black people, so I could laugh and comment loudly along with the rest of the audience at the worst parts of this movie, like when a suddenly CGI version of Lion Dundee hugs a lion.

Jokes aside, I found the movie鈥檚 premise quite disturbing. The beast in question is just a lion. Not that lions can鈥檛 be scary, but it feels far-fetched to portray a lion mysteriously gaining the ability to overtake teams of men with guns. The explanation is that he鈥檚 鈥済one rogue鈥� and is out to kill every human in his territory because a group of poachers killed his pride. When Lion Dundee sees the beast鈥檚 carnage, he keeps shaking his head and going, 鈥淟ions don鈥檛 do that.鈥� Which, like鈥� exactly.

Beast credits the ability of the Daniels family to survive the lion to the predator鈥檚 鈥渒nowing who his real enemies are鈥濃�攊.e. the poachers. So why did the lion kill every single man, woman, and child in a South African village? These people weren鈥檛 poachers and yet the movie shows their bodies mutilated and surrounded by flies in a familiar orientalist gaze. This imagery seems to fault them for their own destruction and imply that the Americans and the white adventurer are purer than the cruel Africans who poach lions and therefore deserve to die. (There are a couple white poachers too.) In other words, the movie suggests the poachers should be killed in order to protect wildlife, a moral question that has been in the news lately鈥攔emember when we found out in Zambia? Human rights organizations have been speaking out for years against the torture, rape, and murder of poachers鈥攎ost of whom are indigenous to Asian and African countries.

Beast is a bad movie that jumps into topical issues and fumbles the landing. But if you鈥檙e an Idris Elba fan, enjoy hate-watches, and don鈥檛 mind a little justification of human rights crimes, why not?

笔谤别测听

If you haven鈥檛 seen Prey yet, I highly recommend you go watch it immediately. I skipped the English version and instead watched the Comanche language dub, which adds a layer of cultural specificity and language preservation that makes this movie a particular gem. This Predator prequel depicts the first intergalactic hunter to arrive on earth, in the middle of Comanche territory, where it meets its match in young warrior Naru (Amber Midthunder). Naru and Predator are mirrors of each other in a fascinating way: both of them are stalking the other, and both are looking to hunt something worth catching. The thesis of the movie鈥斺�淗ow can you hunt that which is hunting you?鈥濃�攚hich is asked by Naru鈥檚 brother Taabe (Dakota Beavers), has the potential to be corny. But as a driving idea, it pulls the plot into several twists and turns that kept me engaged.

Midthunder gives a stunning performance as Naru, a young woman determined to prove herself as a hunter despite her brother and other male warriors’ insistence that she鈥檚 not good enough. But it鈥檚 her agility and power of observation that leads to her chilling revenge against brutal French fur trappers who are also hunting Predator, and her final showdown with the alien. The movie is a real thriller, and it hits every emotional note from tender scenes between Naru and her mother (Michelle Thrush) to one showing a heartbreaking sacrifice.

Fall

https://youtu.be/aa5MXOMN1lM

This is the dumbest movie I鈥檝e seen in a very long time. My general rule is to never see movies in which the main character is named Becky, and Fall proved me right. It stars two 20-something climbers, Becky (Grace Caroline Currey) and Hunter (Virginia Gardner). On a climbing trip, they watch in horror as Becky鈥檚 husband, Dan, falls hundreds of feet to his death.

Becky understandably stops climbing and has a hard time coping after the accident. Hunter, meanwhile, becomes a climbing influencer on Instagram. To help Becky 鈥渇ind closure鈥� and 鈥済et back to being herself,鈥� Hunter invites her to climb a rusty, abandoned 2,000-foot TV tower in the middle of the desert and then spread Dan鈥檚 ashes from the top. The expedition takes a turn when the ladder falls apart and they end up stuck up there with no water, no cell service, and only incredibly dangerous and stupid options to get down.

The movie irretrievably lost my attention when Hunter suggests the nonsensical mission. Her proposal is so insane it immediately causes the movie to lose credibility. Why didn鈥檛 the duo climb a mountain instead? Why did they keep climbing a rickety TV tower that kept groaning and moaning and shaking? The stunning stupidity of the protagonists made me lose any sense of sympathy for their predicament. Aside from being just plain badly written, the height stunts are very unsettling. I鈥檓 not particularly afraid of heights鈥擨鈥檝e frolicked along the rim of the Grand Canyon with no issues鈥攂ut this movie made me want to vomit. I needed to take a big dose of Klonopin halfway through. This movie isn鈥檛 worth your time. What the movie lacked in depth and quality it attempted to make up for in trying to make viewers shit their pants from vertigo鈥攈ard pass.

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In the 19th century, an estimated one in four cowboys were Black, but you鈥檇 never know from reading and watching western books and films. This canon has served as an act of cinematic and literary nationalism, portraying cowboys of the Old West as white, craggy men of few words and many pistols. And when Black and Indigenous people, in particular, have been included, the genre has relied on spectacle and romanticization that has demonized, tokenized, or fetishized them instead of telling their rich stories.

But the histories of Black cowboys and other marginalized groups in the West are gradually becoming less forgotten. A group of Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Latinx filmmakers and writers have started to update the story of who the West belongs to and who belongs in the West. The most high profile recent example of this reassessment is director Jordan Peele鈥檚 alien-horror movie, , which came out last month. (Spoilers ahead.)

Nope is a western. It鈥檚 not an homage to westerns, nor a nod toward westerns, nor a subversion of the western genre. It鈥檚 just a western, but it鈥檚 one with a modern Black cowboy and his sister at the center of the story. Nope replaces the cowboy鈥檚 hat and stirrups with streetwear, and his pistols with a fleet of cameras鈥攆rom a smartphone to an old-fashioned crank. It is a story not of racing against death, but of racing against the world鈥檚 hunger for spectacle, and racing towards one鈥檚 rightful inclusion in history.

In Nope, OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya) and his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), are presented with an opportunity to save their family鈥檚 ranch in Agua Dulce, California, after their father, Otis Sr. (Keith David), is mysteriously killed by a coin falling out of the sky. The Haywoods have a rich but ignored history as the descendants of the first person captured on camera, . (A Black jockey , but in real life, history has erased the man鈥檚 name.) Without their patriarch, the siblings struggle to keep their business afloat training and wrangling horses for TV commercials and movies in nearby Hollywood. When OJ and Emerald discover a UFO-like object hovering above their property, they hatch a plan to sell footage of it to the media鈥攚hat Emerald calls 鈥渢he Oprah shot鈥濃�攁nd cement themselves in Hollywood (and western) history once more.

After watching the movie, I was curious what some of the non-white authors and critics who have been reimagining the western thought of Nope and what it adds to the genre. Kali Fajardo-Anstine, author of the 2022 western novel , is from Denver and currently lives in Wyoming. Fajardo-Anstine is mixed Chicana with Indigenous and Filipino heritage, and her book is a generational epic based on her own family stories, exploring the history of Indigenous, Filipino, Black, and Chicano people in Colorado and Northern New Mexico. Seeing 狈辞辫别鈥檚 Black, Latinx, and Asian characters in a western horror film was invigorating to Fajardo-Anstine. 鈥淚 really hope that we鈥檙e on the cusp of a new movement in western literature and media,鈥� says Fajardo-Anstine, also pointing to the popular AMC series , which is Native-American written and stars Indigenous actors.

Stephen Graham Jones, the Blackfeet author of the upcoming western horror novel , told me that awe-inspiring nature鈥攍ike the rolling, wide-open landscapes shown throughout 狈辞辫别鈥�is part of what defines the West and the marginalized people who live there. It鈥檚 also what contributes to outside desires to conquer it, to make it a spectacle, to that which is beautiful. 鈥淧eople who aren鈥檛 Native look at it, see it鈥檚 pretty, and say 鈥業 want that,鈥欌�欌�� he says. 聽Ironically, he points out he鈥檚 talking to me on the phone while parked outside the abandoned Buffalo Bill鈥檚 Market and General Store about 20 miles north of Memphis, Tennessee. was a white man who exploited Indigenous people in his Wild West shows, including , who had to work in and lend his image to these spectacles in order to survive.

It鈥檚 not just marginalized people in the West who are flattened by this kind of spectacle, but also its landscapes and wildlife. Nope subverts the tropes of both westerns and alien movies by gradually revealing that the mysterious flying saucer is really just a hungry, sensitive animal. OJ and Emerald even give him the endearing name of Jean Jacket. Viewers begin to see Jean Jacket as more than an abstraction, and are rewarded with glimpses of the alien鈥檚 anatomy and psyche.

Chinese-American writer C Pam Zhang is the author of , a western novel that centers two Chinese-American siblings in the California hills who have to go on the run. The book highlights how even though , racist western narratives have depicted them as contradictory to the myth of the American West and liminal to its story.

Zhang was also a fan of Nope. She says there鈥檚 danger in seeing the 鈥渋nherent and awesome danger鈥� of western American landscapes and wildlife as spectacle alone, which is conveyed in the film by the contrast between OJ and Jupe (Steven Yeun). Jupe is a former child-actor turned owner of a western-themed amusement park neighboring the Hayward Ranch that is reminiscent of Buffalo Bill鈥檚 shows. For Zhang, Nope almost functions like a Greek tragedy, warning against the dangers of hubris. 鈥淐haracters like Jupe die because they underestimate the natural phenomenon that is the UFO, just as selfie takers at national parks have died by slipping to their deaths in the quest for a better shot,鈥� she says. 鈥淔lattening the natural world is a matter of life or death.鈥�

But Peele gives Jupe鈥檚 story complexity, as well. Jupe himself was made into a spectacle when he played the adopted Asian child of a white family with a pet chimp on a sitcom called Gordy鈥檚 House. His appearance next to white children is seen as almost an oddity to laugh at. In a creepy subplot, viewers learn that a chimp playing Gordy was triggered on set, causing him to kill or maim almost everyone except for Jupe, who received a fist bump from the chimp right before animal control shot him.

Graham Jones thought Jupe鈥檚 storyline was one of the most compelling and creepy. He felt the movie was saying 鈥渢hat both kid actors and animals are disposable. Jupe has also been forgotten, which is why he is in the desert doing his little shows.鈥� Although Jupe was made a spectacle of, he understands that the gaze of the stupefied masses is powerful, and he prefers this to erasure. What Jupe really wants is to be truly seen, and he chases that desire all the way to his death.

If Jupe had been able to see past the spectacle and understand Jean Jacket鈥檚 primary needs鈥攆ood and shelter鈥攖he outcome would have been different. Jean Jacket isn鈥檛 like aliens from movies past. The territory Jean Jacket wants to call his own is relatively small, just a tiny part of Agua Dulce. He鈥檚 not concerned with domination or human subjudgation; he鈥檚 just hungry. Even the death of OJ and Emerald鈥檚 father is revealed to be, as Fajardo-Anstine points out, 鈥渏ust a function of Jean Jacket eating鈥濃�攖he coin was excreted after the flying saucer was finished gobbling some people up. Most interestingly, each character could escape Jean Jacket if they wanted to. Almost no one in the movie is trapped until they trap themselves. But all are drawn in by the spectacle鈥攐r more aptly, what the spectacle can bring them.

Jupe and OJ aren鈥檛 so different in this regard. They both see something to gain from Jean Jacket. But what allows OJ to survive is his ability to see Jean Jacket as a multidimensional being. By realizing that Jean Jacket doesn鈥檛 eat people who avoid looking at him in the eye, OJ evades death. He has the same savvy as Jupe, but lacks the hubris. 鈥淥J is a rare character aware of his human fragility in a vast western landscape that could care less about him,鈥� says Zhang.

Aramide Tinubu, a Black film critic and entertainment journalist, says this storyline illuminates Black people鈥檚 long-held reverent respect for western American nature. 鈥淥tis and Em learn about the beast and respect its power, like the horses they train. Black people helped shape the American West by respecting the authority of the land, cattle, and people already there. They gave without simply taking from it,鈥� Tinubu says. OJ survives by treating both his horses and Jean Jacket as complex beings who require a careful, nuanced approach.聽It鈥檚 a story of animal revenge, but also of how respecting animals is crucial, and how marginalized people can take their own power and histories back in doing so.

Graham Jones, whose 2020 book The Only Good Indians聽is also a tale of animal revenge told through an Indigenous lens, feels that the western genre is finally recognizing that the voices that belong to it aren鈥檛 all white鈥攖hat they鈥檙e Indigenous, Black, Asian, and Latinx. He says the genre is moving past 鈥渢his idea of what the Old West was.鈥�

The West is a battlefield of history and narrative, a place where people go to create the myth of this nation. Within the western genre, there鈥檚 something exciting happening鈥攕omething that鈥檚 always been happening. Rich stories are pushing back against tired old ideas, and marginalized people are grabbing their own cameras and pointing them towards their own lives and those in power. All this is creating lightning, and a much more dynamic genre.

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