Written & Directed by Jordan Peele
Chris: "Yeah, so this is uncharted territory for them. You know, I don't want to get chased off the lawn with a shotgun."
Rose: "You're not going to. First of all, my Dad would have voted for Obama a third time if he could've. Like, the love is so real."
It's been interesting in the last three years to see the career trajectory that Jordan Peele has had, all due to the success of this movie and I have to admit it's taken me this long to finally have actually seen this horror number to get why so many have become enamoured with Peele's general appeal in the genre.
I'm not going to cite this movie as an outright classic because while I definitely think it adds a conversation into the genre that's been needed for a while, it's somewhat not without it's flaws and that's mainly how one dimensional (although creepy) the main antagonists of the film actually are. There's little in the way of nuance with them.
However every horror film needs a strong protagonist and given that this is a genre where the male protagonists are often few and far between, my favourite thing about this particular film would be lead actor Daniel Kaluuya. Over the years, he's gone from a bit player and co-writer on a show like Skins for UK audiences to a bonafide leading man in Hollywood and it's easy to see how this movie essentially catapulted his fame.
Kaluuya's role is that of Chris Washington, who for the first time is finally meeting the parents of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Girls actor, Allison Williams) and the issue of Chris being a black man is raised earlier into the movie with Rose reassuring him that her parents are not racist. The fact that Rose seemingly insisted on that already set up where things were going to go in this movie.
Once we meet Rose's family - Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy Armitage (Catherine Keener) as well as her brother, Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) and housemaid Georgina (Betty Gabriel) it soon becomes pretty clear that all isn't what it seems with the Armitages andChris finds himself plunged into a nightmare he won't forget anytime soon.
While the Armitages themselves feel a bit too one dimensional as baddies, I will admit that aside from Kaluuya himself, Allison Williams does a brilliant job switching from a seemingly nice girlfriend in Rose to a full blown psychopath and the more sci-fi elements of the Armitages true schemes really does help to elevate the movie a little beyond being a typical horror fest. I think it's probably that element that later saw Peele getting The Twilight Zone gig for CBS Access.
- Peele did a voice cameo for the injured deer and a commercial in the movie. This is also the first horror movie from an African American director to make over 100 million in the box office.
- I was pretty much relieved that no harm came to Chris's dog in this movie because that happens far too often in horror films. The deer on the other hand wasn't as fortunate.
- Another standout performance in this movie was also Lakeith Stanfield as both Andre Hayworth and Logan King.
- Standout music: Childish Gambino's Redbone at the beginning of this movie.
Get Out was an impressive debut for Jordan Peele and while the baddies of the piece could've been fleshed out far better, there's no denying that both Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams excel in the lead roles, there's plenty of nice subversion from some usual horror tropes and it definitely delivered the right amount of scares.
Rating: 7 out of 10
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