I don’t go to horror films but my friend and follow movie buff, Melanie Dreher, urged me to see Get Out. I am not at all sure I liked it, but I am positive that this camp social commentary disguised as a horror film has become a box office favorite.
Get Out (Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Bradley Whitford, Catherine Keener, LilRel Howery) – Sometimes lightning strikes. B-level actors abound in Get Out, a low-budget ($5 million) horror/thriller/occasionally funny film that has brought in $170 million to date. I still can’t decide if I liked it, but I am sure that those who enjoy horror films will find it refreshingly inventive.
What starts out as your basic Nicholas Sparks’-like “somebody has to die” film set in a country estate devolves into a thriller-among-the-rich and then into a 1930s-era Frankenstein-like brain transplant zombie flick. We have social commentary as our lead mixed–race couple, Chris Washington (Brit Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), is preparing to visit her parents. Chris, a photographer, asks Rose if she has told her parents that her boyfriend is black, but she assures him not to worry because they will welcome him warmly since her father “would have voted for Obama a third time if he had the chance.”
Everything seems perfect right up to the time when a deer hits their car, breaking a headlight and a side mirror. The cop who comes to the site asks for Chris’ ID even though he’s not driving, and Rose reacts badly to the racial profiling while Chris is unfazed. When they get to the sprawling home in the country, they first see a black groundskeeper with a strange look before being met by the seemingly welcoming, trying-too-hard to be liberal parents played by veterans Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener. She is a psychiatrist specializing in curing people who smoke through hypnosis. He is a neurosurgeon. Then they meet the black maid, who seems oddly zombie-like. A seemingly black sheep son/brother shows up with a weird fixation on mixed martial arts.
And we’re off!
Stuff starts to happen. A cocktail party featuring strangely odd couples, a blind art dealer (Stephen Root), a former golf pro “who knows Tiger,” and a May-December mixed-race couple makes Chris more than a bit uncomfortable. These people all arrive in identical black limos and seem incredibly welcoming to Chris. But something is truly amiss.
The rest is pure camp. Chris shares what is going on with his best friend, a TSA agent (funnyman LilRel Howery), who gets worried when Chris doesn’t show up back in town when he should. As the movie gets weirder and the secrets get unveiled, Chris becomes the prey and turns into Rambo.
This film is the first directorial effort of Jordan Peele, half of the African-American comedy duo with partner Keegan–Michael Key. It is an impressive debut whether you like the film or not. I would tell you not to go if you don’t like horror flicks. But if you do, you may find this oddly compelling and more than a bit creative.