Christopher Nolan Already Made A Horror Movie

Published Jul 21, 2026, 9:30 AM EDT Ben Sherlock is a Tomatometer-approved film and TV critic who runs the massively underrated YouTube channel I Got Touched at the Cinema. Before working at Screen Rant, Ben wrote for Game Rant, Taste of Cinema, Comic Book Resources, and BabbleTop. He's also an indie filmmaker, a standup comedian, and an alumnus of the School of Rock. Christopher Nolan has been doing the rounds recently to promote his latest IMAX epic, The Odyssey. For the most part, the interviewers have focused on the film at hand — asking how they pulled off certain shots, probing the meaning of certain images, and interrogating Nolan’s interpretation of Homer’s poem — but a couple of them have asked what’s next for the prolific filmmaker. One might expect Nolan to helm another mega-scale action-adventure blockbuster, like The Odyssey or The Dark Knight or Inception, or dive back into history for another immersive recreation of a significant past event, like Dunkirk or Oppenheimer, and I’d be down for either of those. But Nolan actually has his sights set on a genre he’s never tackled before, and it’s a more tantalizing prospect than yet another action film about a dad trying to get home. In a recent interview, Nolan teased his interest in making a horror film. “I’d love to do a horror movie,” he said, “but it’s all about the idea.” You can’t just up and make a horror movie; you need a great conceptual idea, like the One Wish Willow from Obsession or the liminal spaces of Backrooms, and Nolan hasn’t cracked that idea yet. Nolan has never made a full-blown horror film, but he’s flirted with horror in the past. The Scarecrow’s fear toxin produces all kinds of on-screen terrors in Batman Begins, and Mal’s presence in Dom Cobb’s dreams in Inception is basically a demonic parasite. With his latest work, The Odyssey, Nolan is closer to making a horror movie than ever. There are a lot of unsettling visuals in Homer’s original epic, and Nolan had a ton of fun bringing them to life in deeply disturbing fashion. Nolan wants to make a full-on horror movie, but I’d argue he already has. The Odyssey Is Christopher Nolan's Scariest Movie Nolan has been talking about wanting to direct a horror film and waiting for the right premise to come along, but The Odyssey is, in many ways, his horror film. There were a couple of unexpected scares in Nolan’s Batman movies, and Heath Ledger’s Joker is pure nightmare fuel, but The Odyssey has a looming sense of dread draped over the entire runtime. Odysseus’ seemingly endless quest to get home with his ever-dwindling army, facing one existentially terrifying obstacle after another, creates a palpable feeling of anxiety in the same way that The Exorcist or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre did. As a whole, The Odyssey is a big fantasy action epic, but there are certain isolated sequences in the film that feel like their own little self-contained horror movie. The horror vibes start to set in when Odysseus and his men are trapped in the Cyclops’ cave. That whole sequence feels like a Ray Harryhausen creature feature. It doesn’t feel like weightless VFX; it feels like this giant monster is really there, stamping on soldiers like ants. Puppeteer Bill Irwin managed to make the Cyclops both unbearably creepy and strangely sympathetic. The Cyclops’ tortured scream is a sound you’ve never heard before, and never want to hear again. From then on, The Odyssey just gets scarier and scarier. The Trojan horse scene is really effectively claustrophobic; the Circe scene, featuring a show-stopping cameo by Samantha Morton, is really gnarly body horror with a budget; and the Calypso scenes, where Odysseus struggles to regain his memories while being drugged by his long-time assaulter, are like a psychological thriller in the vein of Jacob’s Ladder or Blink Twice. Plus, there are a bunch of jump scares along the way. Every time a monster yanks one of Odysseus’ men out of frame, you’ll leap out of your seat.