Normally, saying a horror movie like Get Out comes from the creative mind of a comedian would draw puzzled looks from an audience. However, Jordan Peele is no normal comedian. As half of Key and Peele, the guy has come up with some of the best social commentary on race relations in the United States in recent memory. Get Out proudly propels Peele into the cinematic realm with his incisive writing and clever directing, placing him among the promising new filmmakers to break onto the scene.
Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is getting nervous about an upcoming visit to his girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents house. You see, Rose neglected to tell mom Missy (Catherine Keener) and dad Dean (Bradley Whitford) that Chris is African-American, and her parents might take issue with the fact that their daughter is dating a black man. The couple arrives, and Chris begins to notice strange things apart from the normal awkward interactions. Scared, he texts his TSA buddy Rod (LilRel Howery) for support, but Chris might already be in too deep to formulate an escape.
Traditional horror films would portray the Armitage family and their white friends as ho-hum racists, but Peele is MUCH smarter than that. If you were to place this family on the political spectrum, it would be more liberal right? They’re Obama supporters, they condemn racist statements from other people, they appear to care for their black employees Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), and their daughter is progressive enough to date a black man! Get Out is smart because of how it switches perspective. Through Chris’s eyes, we see how every white person he talks to almost always brings up race because they think that’s the best way to relate to him, instead of just talking about other normal things. I cringed at every “Do you like Tiger Woods?” or “What’s your thang” that poor Chris has to handle. And when he reacts poorly out of frustration, everyone gets scared at him even though his reaction is relatively calm and totally justified. In addition, Rose is the best example of misunderstood liberal white privilege; she makes many assumptions, like her family will immediately accept Chris, that the mostly white party won’t be that big of a deal, or that the black people her family employs behave normally because they were the only black people she knew before Chris.
Get Out also does a fantastic job blending comedy and horror, among the best blends I’ve witnessed since This Is the End. Daniel Kaluuya very effectively plays the straight man here, using his expressive face to show how scared, happy, angry, or frustrated he may be. The scene where Missy show’s off how effective her psychiatrist skills are is terrifying thanks to Kaluuya. The dialogue in the middle lulls you in with cringe comedy as white people desperately try to relate to Chris, but then will instantly turn to fear when the stellar Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel, or Lakeith Stanfield subvert Chris’s expectations by their overly smiley and eloquent speech, messing with Chris’s mind and escalating his paranoia. By the time we get to the meat of the story in the third act, Peele has mostly got control of his tone, using LilRel Howery as comedic release from the intense situations Chris is going through. The movie climaxes in the final 20 minutes, with Peele using our expectations against us to great effect.
Get Out was the surprise film at Sundance, a usually prestigious spot for what the board selects as a gem of the festival. That spot is well deserved because of Get Out’s pointed satire, jump scares, and surprising humor culminated in a superb film. Boy, Key and Peele will be forces of nature at the movies, won’t they? First a movie about an action movie kitten, then a horror thriller about interracial dating?? I can’t wait to see what their crazy minds conjure up next.