by Ryan Rojas/www.cinemacy.com
By now you’ve probably heard that the suburbia-horror satire Get Out is worth seeing in theaters, standing as one of the first big movie events of the year. In its fifth week in release, the genre-pic, with a budget of only $4.5 million dollars and a total gross of– as of this writing– just north of $133 million, has found its legs by being a horror movie for the twenty-first century. Get Out is not only an edge-of-your-seat nutso head-spinning story, but a socially conscious movie that adds to the national conversation of race and safety championed by the Black Lives Matter protesting of post-Obama America.
Get Out is written and directed by comedian Jordan Peele, better known as one-half of the comedic duo of Comedy Central’s former hit show Key and Peele (along with partner Keegan-Michael Key). The Universal Pictures release, produced by veteran horror producer Jason Blum of Blumhouse Productions (Split, Insidious) has more than connected with audiences, this time being “Certified Fresh” on Rotten Tomatoes at 99% and opening at a record-setting 100%.
Get Out follows a typical horror film template, but Peele makes it fresh by slotting the perspective of the current African-American experience of living in a predominantly white middle-class America into the framework, and then corkscrewing that premise into a full-tilt satirical terror. The story of a young man of color (Daniel Kaluuya) meeting his white girlfriend’s (Allison Williams) family for the first time starts out as a movie send-up of the classic meet-the-parents awkwardness before dovetailing into the dread of discovering her family’s possible secret (or secret society) that feels like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner meets The Stepford Wives.
When young photographer Chris (Kaluuya) is brought by Rose (Williams) to meet her parents at their country estate for the weekend, he asks her if they know that her boyfriend is black – it’s an early temperature reading that sheds light on those things that are still on the forefront of nonwhite’s daily living. Rose’s loving reassures Chris and the two are off to her parent’s house in the backwoods, putting in motion the familiar story of horror movie isolated helplessness. At Rose’s warning, her neurosurgeon father Dean (Bradley Whitford) and psychotherapist mother Missy (Catherine Keener) only evoke slight cringe-worthy conversations that mildly substantiate Chris’ worries of meeting her all-white family, and it doesn’t help when he notices that the grounds worker and house-staff are all African-American (and act a little more than odd). However, the little tensions go fully bonkers when it’s remembered that their weekend stay is also during the annual Armitage family gathering, where an entire drove of upper-class whites drive in for the afternoon and even odder occurrences reveal themselves to a freaked out Chris, who begins to wise up to the fact that things are definitely not what they seem, and that his safety may or may not depend on his “getting out.”
It should be said now that Get Out, as was this reviewer’s experience, is best watched with little to zero pre-knowledge of the movie and no knowledge of what you’re in store for (which makes writing a review of the film in which to sell the movie a trick in its own right), as it’s effect is fully felt in the surprises that come around every corner. What can and should be said about the movie is that, while Get Out may technically be Jordan Peele’s first credited feature film (and only his second writing effort next to 2016’s Key and Peele-starrer Keanu), one shouldn’t be surprised that Peele has executed a vision that so successfully blends all genres – horror, comedy, and wickedly welcome surrealism – as he’s cut his teeth arguably making hundreds of original short films with wacky jokes and even wackier characters that made up his Emmy-Award winning television series.
Past the early year’s stuffy Oscars season and now with the start of early summer blockbusters, Get Out has proven that it connects with audiences and has tapped into a very real message, both recent racial injustices as well as this country’s history with slavery. It’s an original scary movie that flips a script on the traditional scary set-up and will take you out of your comfort zone in more ways than one.
Get Out is now playing everywhere. Rated R for violence, bloody images, and language including sexual references
