Get Out (2017)

“Get Out” stars Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, and Bradley Whitford.  Released on February 24, 2017, the film is about a photographer who discovers something sinister while visiting his girlfriend’s parents.

The film features the directorial debut of Jordan Peele, who is best known for starring in the sketch comedy show, Key & Peele.  Well, here’s something that I wasn’t expecting for quite a while: a comedian directing a horror film about an interracial couple.  Try putting that into your head for a second.  At first, I was a little bit curious on what it’s going to be, but when I watched the trailer for the first time, my curiosity started to increase.  It looks creepy as heck, but it appears that this film is dealing with racism as well.  This is something that I don’t usually see in horror films, so it would be interesting for me to see how they could make that work.  That, and the fact that it’s been getting a lot of really good reviews.  No, I’m serious, I’ve been hearing everybody saying that it’s good for the past few days, even the critics loved it.  Now that I experienced it for the first time, is this really the perfect horror film we’ve been waiting for?  Let’s find out.

To describe this type of movie from my point of view, I would say that it took some elements from films that focus on meeting the loved one’s parents such as Meet the Parents and Guess Who…and make them so scary that you’ll never have a relationship ever again.  While it didn’t reach its goal of scaring me to death, it did manage to creep me out in the most brilliant way possible.  For starters, the entire cast nailed their performances from start to finish, including Kaluuya as Chris Washington.  What I liked about Chris was that he’s pretty cautious as to what’s going on with his girlfriend’s family and their houseworkers, and he’s not just some victim that falls prey to the horror elements that we’ve seen before.  With Jordan Peele in the director’s chair, it’s pretty obvious that the film is going to have some laughs along with its sense of creepiness.  Most of the laughs came from Chris’ friend, Rod (played by Lil Rel Howery), who almost stole the show with his dialogue.  I cannot tell you how much I laughed at the way he responds to this type of situation.  For a guy who’s known for doing comedy, I thought Peele did a really good job at mixing in the horror and comedy with a story that’s both smart and engaging.  There have been several occasions where they mentioned something about race, especially the interracial couple, but the film doesn’t overdo it so much that it becomes offensive.  From my personal experience, I think the film is made to represent one of the possible fears of what could have happened while visiting your boyfriend’s parents or your girlfriend’s parents or whatever.  It’s like watching your own nightmare come to life right in front of your eyes.  What made it so effective was its sense of realism and the atmosphere, which is one of the key ingredients to making a horror film.  It also doesn’t go out of the way to make it so over-the-top like some other average horror films, hence its small budget.  Another thing that I really liked was the film’s score.  I don’t really talk about the score that much in my other film reviews, but for this one, I’m willing to make an exception.  It matches the tone perfectly as it is both haunting and unsettling like something’s trying to get you.  As for the flaws, the story does have a couple of predictable moments and there were some scenes that tried to scare me, but failed.

Overall, “Get Out” successfully blends the fear of meeting the loved one’s parents with director Jorden Peele’s sense of humor and producer Jason Blum’s creepy imagination.  With its smart and engaging story, some impressive performances, and its haunting score, this film marks a strong example of how to make a horror film that uses realism and creepiness to give the audience goosebumps and not just random jump scares and monsters.  It didn’t scare me so much that it could give me nightmares, but it does its part in turning this type of fear into reality, and that is good enough for me.  If you’re a fan of Jorden Peele from Key & Peele, then you might be surprised at what this guy can do as a director, co-producer, and writer.  If you want a horror film that’s both creepy and smart, this one’s definitely worth seeing in the theater, but you might want to get the tickets as early as possible because who knows?  It might sell out again during its second weekend.  Oh, and one more thing, please do not bring your little kids to this movie!  Take them to see Lego Batman instead.

B+