Christopher Nolan Warns That Oppenheimer Has A Bit Of A Horror Element

If the trailers for Christopher Nolan's "Oppenheimer" have seemed a tad ... well, tense, you can feel a little bit better knowing that you're not alone in being surprised by a darker tone. Nolan himself said there was something different about this movie. In an interview with Wired, Nolan described discovering this unintended darkness while in post-production. "As I started to finish the film," he said, "I started to feel this color that's not in my other films, just darkness. It's there. The film fights against that."

In his conversation with Maria Streshinksy, Nolan grabbed onto a word she used: nihilism. He knew the film was going to end up an intense experience. I mean, how could it not? As scary as a nuclear weapon is today, you have to remember when the scientists were working on developing the bomb, they were working off of pure theory and couldn't be sure splitting the atom wouldn't end up unraveling all existence as we know it.

Nolan does say that the film fights against nihilism, but he can't deny that "Oppenheimer" has a different feel from his previous films. In fact, he showed it to a filmmaker friend of his (he didn't mention which one), who straight-up said it was kind of a horror movie. 

Nolan's response: "I don't disagree."

Now, don't take those words to mean you're going to be seeing Christopher Nolan's "Hereditary" or something. The dark tone and nihilistic feel does play a part in it, but Nolan was very specific in why he considers "Oppenheimer" to be something of a horror movie. "It's a complicated set of feelings to be entertained by awful things, you know? Which is where the horror dimension comes in," the director said.

You can't be flippant when telling this story. The atom bomb changed the world, yes, and the brains behind it were unquestionably brilliant, but at the end of the day it is a weapon that was used to kill hundreds of thousands of people. That complication is what Nolan is talking about above. It's a movie and it has to engage its audience, which means it's some form of entertainment. That's a hell of a line to walk.

That weight was on Nolan, clearly, and he admitted to being relieved to be finished with it, but he also said he enjoys watching the film tremendously. It's very clear that Nolan didn't enter into this particular story lightly and was surprised by the unique flavor the finished film has, but that's the magic of movie-making. Even a filmmaker as detail-oriented as Christopher Nolan has to let the story become what it's going to become. And if he's surprised by it, then I can only imagine how we'll all feel when we're watching it next month.

"Oppenheimer" releases in theaters on July 21, 2023.