What happens when an actor renowned for his career in the world of sitcom decides to delve into the realm of Horror? Not in front of the camera however, but behind. Jordan Peele is most commonly known for his roles in American sitcoms and slapstick comedy films. His directorial debut is of an entirely different ilk. Get Out is fundamentally a horror film, but written and directed by a comedic mind. A twist and turn horror story surrounding the theme of 21st century racism, with added laughs at the ‘cringey horribleness’ of casual racism from white upper-class Americans.
Chris is a young and talented photographer living in New York City. The film enters his life as he is about to take his 5 month relationship with girlfriend Rose to the next level by heading to meet her family for the weekend. Chris is dubious about the meeting once he finds out Rose’s white suburban family are unaware he is black. After arriving his uneasiness is only fuelled by the fact the family have two black servants in the house, and upon being greeted by enormous amounts of casual but evidently abnormal and cringe-worthy racism from the attendees of the family’s annual get together. Things turn dark after Chris encounters a fellow black man that he recognises, but not as the suburban wet cloth that stands before him. Once unravelling the man’s identity, Chris figures out the weekend away is not all as it seems, and he is the genetic prize in a violent and racist game of bingo. But can he get out?
As far as writing and directorial debut’s go, Jordan Peele’s career has potential to overtake his one in acting. The story and script are constructed to make one laugh, jump and wince both in the sense of embarrassment at the racist dialogue and in the gore. The mixture of horror and comedy can often have cheap and tasteless results in film. Get Out destroys this idea. It mixes the two well so that the viewer doesn’t know what to feel when. One minute we are laughing along with the comedic perfection of Lil Rel Howery’s portrayal of Chris’s best friend that tries to unearth the truth that he has been turned into “a sex slave or some shit”. The next, we are going along with Chris not knowing who to trust as a plot twist dives him & us into a bloody fight for survival. The film triumphs as it progresses and turns laughter into intense fear. Peele thrusts casual racism onto a big screen for viewers to cringe and wince at, before taking it to extremes by going from casual to violent and downright ludicrous. Get Out is an absurd and disturbing take on 21st century racism and suburban life in America. Terrifyingly entertaining and unique. We can only hope 2017 horror continues at this standard.
Video courtesy of: Universal Pictures UK
[imdb id=tt5052448]
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by Peter Callaghan
After two duds in as many days – Kong: Skull Island and The Time Of Their Lives which should be renamed Wrong: Cull and They Should Get Time – I resigned myself to the fact that if my third trip to the flicks was to prove as equally disappointing I might have to take the title literally and, mid-film, exit stage left to the sound of my own feet. Thankfully, my negative premonitions about Get Out were way out and, like the main protagonist at the end of the film, I had a blast. Incidentally, that is the last of the spoilers because after the first fifteen minutes of bright and breezy scene-setting, everything goes south – Deep South – in a twisted, satirical and WTF way!
In the black corner, Chris Washington, played by the impressive British actor Daniel Kaluuya who not only starred as Posh Kenneth in Skins but to continue the boxing metaphor won Outstanding Newcomer at both the 2010 Evening Standard Awards and Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards for his performance as Leon in Roy Williams’ boxing drama Sucker Punch. In the white corner, his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) who coaxes him out of his shell of reluctance to meet her parents Dean and Missy (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener). The former, an Obama-loving liberal; the latter, a grounded therapist with a penchant for hypnotism.
But despite warm handshakes, tight bear hugs and enthusiastic talk about Jesse Owens whose dazzling performance at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics was said to have single-handedly crushed Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy, something’s not right. One, the servants Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and Walter (Marcus Henderson) are black. Two, they sport dead eyes, blank faces and false smiles. And three, their gait and speech is strangely robotic. Concerned, but with nothing concrete to go on, Chris parks thoughts of leaving and hangs around for an annual gathering of friends and family who bar one guest – a black man with a familiar face who takes a fit and tells him to “get out” – are as white as the Ku Klux Klan. From then on, things go downhill faster than the Jamaican bobsleigh team in Cool Running.
Writer and director Jordan Peele, one half of the American television sketch show Key & Peele whose previous film Keanu I would put on a par with Kong: Skull Island and The Time Of Their Lives, is bang on the money with Get Out. From its eye-catching opening and nerve-jangling score by Michael Abels to the impressive performances and razor-sharp dialogue which pokes fun at tired stereotypes about black men being “stronger, faster, cooler” not to mention well-endowed but underwhelming in the brains department, everything about it oozes class. And given that it was made on a shoe-string budget of $4.5m, it is both astonishing and pleasing that it has thus far taken $117m at the box office. Get Out? Get in there!