Get Out (2017) Director: Jordan Peele
“Get out! Get out!”
★★★★★
Get Out is the fantastic directorial debut of Jordan Peele, former comedian turned film buff aficionado. Get Out film is a claustrophobic psychological horror film with an important subtext of social commentary. It tells the story of Christopher Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), a black/african-american man who visits his white girlfriend’s family at their rural home in upstate New York. Strange things start happening as he cannot sleep one evening and is then gently put into a trance. The next day, he notices the family’s Black servants who quietly work around the house, all of whom seem to be dead inside. The following day we see the extended family’s annual gathering. Chris tries to take a picture of one of the servants but the flash seems to awaken something within him and he suddenly starts shouting: “Get Out!” Chris sends the photo he took to a friend who notes that the person in question has been labeled a missing people. Chris convinces his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) that they need to leave, but while packing his suitcase he finds many photos of her with previous black/african-american boyfriends. Chris is then attacked and hypnotized again. He awakens in the basement, tied to a chair where a video of the family grandfather explains to him that the family actually uses hypnosis to allow their consciousness to pass into younger and healthier bodies –an effort to attain immortality– and Chris has now been selected. Chris rips cotton stuffing out of the chair and stuff it into his ears so he cannot hear the entrancement again. When he is being taken away for surgery, Chris attacks the family one by one, burning down the operating room. He flees after killing other family members until his friend arrives in a TSA car to rescue him.
Get Out plays on American cultural fears, particularly certain strains of racial antagonism experienced in contemporary American society –hesitance and uneasiness experienced by Black/African Americans who enter into predominantly White/Caucasian spaces. Get Out is Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner thrown into complete chaos and terror. The feeling of safety and security –traditionally associated with upper-crust white suburbs– becomes anything but safe and secure in this film. Get Out takes cultural prejudices and racism, turns them on their heads and taking them to an extreme caricature –and what else can be asked of a good horror film? Get Out is fresh and thrilling in ways that most modern and formulaic horror films fail to attain. Notably, writer-director Jordan Peele follows in Hitchcock’s footsteps with cameos in the film and he voices the sounds of the wounded deer, while also narrating a commercial featured in the film.
I agree 100% with your closing point about how Get Out so uniquely succeeded for its time.