Today I got the chance to see the new horror film from director Jordan Peele called Get Out. This film has received much praise and currently has a 100% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, which is very rare. I’m not the biggest horror fan, but I like good movies so I decided to give it a shot, and I’m glad I did.
Get Out stars Daniel Kaluuya, as a black man named Chris who is dating a white woman (Allison Williams) named Rose. She is taking him to meet her white parents and he is anxious about any prejudices they might have. She reassures him they are progressives who would vote for Obama a third time (as if that means you aren’t racist!) and they head off.
Once they arrive, her parents (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener) are liberal yuppies just like she’d described but there’s something strange going on…
I won’t tell you any more so that you won’t be spoiled. Suffice it to say Get Out does a good job weaving together traditional horror tropes with pointed satire about racism and modern white and black fears of each other. It’s something I will definitely want to see again to pick up on all the clues, messaging and moments I missed the first time (my brother was with me and he noticed a lot more than I did).
I must admit it was refreshing for me as a conservative to finally see the parents weren’t rich Republicans but liberal yuppies. Yep, they can be racist too. It was a nice change of pace, and I think made the satire a bit more subtle and biting than it might have been otherwise.
That’s not to say Get Out is a masterpiece as a 100% might imply. I found the introduction to be pretty slow going and I was beginning to wonder if this was super over-hyped. Then it picks up and becomes very entertaining.
My only other caveat is it’s not that scary. If you are expecting a horror movie that makes you jump and gives you nightmares this isn’t it. It is pretty bloody but everything that happens is a bit over the top (hence it being a satire). In general, horror movies that are very realistic are the scariest for me. For example, Norman Bates in Psycho feels like a real man who could be working at a dumpy hotel and everything he does is fairly pedestrian like how he kills, buries the car etc .Things that happen in Get Out are not realistic in that way. (I hope that is cryptic enough for you!)
I think there are a couple places they could have made it a little more realistic and not sacrificed humor and made it scarier but it’s nitpicking. You kind of have to go with it and for the most part I did.
As far as content it can be bloody and there is some strong language to be aware of. Probably for mature teens and adults only.
Overall Grade- B+
Nice review. It was a pretty solid horror flick that also had a little something to say.
Thanks! It really was solid
I kinda wanted to see it until I realized how much cursing and bloodiness is in it, so I may take a pass.
So this is a horror film? Is it a psychological thriller or a comedy as well?
The line between horror and thriller is always murky but on Wikipedia it’s listed as a “horror comedy” so there you go. I understand about content keeping you away. It’s a shame really because the language is especially unnecessary and doesnt add anything to the humor in my opinion
My boyfriend keeps pleading with me to go see this with him, and this makes me want to even more now!
Let me know what you think!
Don’t think I’d call a movie dumped in late February with a $4.5 production budget as “super over-hyped”. I didn’t even know about this film until the day it came out (Thursday) It was super UNDER-hyped in fact.
Yes, a good movie got good reviews, but don’t hold that against it. We should be celebrating this success. It’s nice to see such a tiny film get some acclaim.
Glad you enjoyed it too. 🙂
I see what you mean. I had actually heard buzz for a couple of months about the film and so was pretty pumped to see it. When it started it wasnt quite working for me but then it hits into gear and won me over. I was just trying to explain my thought process while watching the film.
Lately it’s been a pretty good time for horror movies with Split, Get Out, Don’t Breathe, Conjuring 2, 10 Cloverfield Lane and more all doing well critically and at box office. I think that’s great
This is movie I keep thinking about so it gets better as it sits with me
It honestly amazes me how universally praised this film has been, and unfortunately I feel like I’m the one who has to make some criticisms of it.
First of all I don’t watch many horror films, but considering what a barren wasteland of cliches and formulaic writing I’m told the genre can be, I can see why this movie would attract attention just for being different. Like you said, it’s hard to even describe it as a horror film, though, because for the first two acts it appears to (mostly) be set in the real world and there is nothing scary so much as there is an unsettling constant feeling of dread and discomfort. I see this as mostly as a positive, though, as the greater the realism, the greater the involvement.
The film kind of fell apart for me in the third act, though. After all the build-up, we really want to know what the hell is actually going on, and then all we get basically amounts to a crazy mad scientist plan the likes of which you could find in any standard film (even the hypnotism before that is vaguely plausible, I in fact watched this movie after hearing it mentioned by a fellow student in my college psychology class while discussing hypnotism). It seems like at this point, right when the movie has the chance to become very scary and meaningful, it seems to cop out completely. I was on the edge of my seat, wondering how this would all wrap up, but (GOING INTO SPOILER TERRITORY) our hero just kills all the bad guys and gets away. Anticlimactic much? True, we get a few moments where it seems things could go another way, but that just makes it worse. If the police car had turned out to be full of white cops who arrested him for murder, the film would have had a deeply powerful message and it would have been a sad but brave conclusion. But no, his friend shows up and drives them away to live happily ever after, and I found myself wondering what the point of this film was. In fact, even for all that this film has been labeled a clever commentary on race, I found myself wondering what the racial commentary was supposed to mean. Any concrete meaning or strong point seemed to be deeply confused.
– from Kirksroom, commenting via Facebook because I cannot access my WordPress account anymore
Thanks for the comment. I would encourage you to watch it again and really think about scenes like the auction and the way everyone behaves. It’s movie that I liked the more I thought about because it was finally something that satirizes the smug liberal class who think they are so much more elevated than everyone else. We’d vote for Obama a third time they say…sure that means you’re not racist. The way we talk about many social issues often doesnt gel with our behavior or the institutions we embrace and even elevate. It’s easy to make a movie about the evil hateful redneck but how delightful to take o those who think they are better than racism.
The friend was a little much for me but I didnt mind him getting saved although the message of the way African Americans are treated might have been more poignant it was fine. It kind of reminds me of the documentary OJ Made in America where one of the jurors were interviewed and admitted with pride her no vote was revenge for all that had gotten away with violence against black men and women. As they drove away they returned back to the world that would accept them and they had gotten free with a little revenge for all the pain they had caused. It’s really a movie with layers and I encourage you to keep thinking about it and read some analysis
I think I might. I watched O.J. Made in America and I thought it was an excellent documentary but that part genuinely infuriated me. There really was no racial undercurrent to the trial. Simpson was a celebrity who happened to be black, did next to nothing for the black community, and his acquittal did absolutely jack-shit to make up for all the truly innocent black people who were persecuted and convicted of crimes because of racism.
The Simpson case is very interesting to think about because it shows how people’s positions in life and their prejudices can distort their judgment or how others see them. Fred Goldman was called a racist because he was a middle-class white man who screamed for O.J.’s blood and did not appear to care about racism or for the innocent blacks persecuted. However, calling him a racist is ridiculous because is there really anyone out there who believes that if a white man were on trial for murdering his son, Goldman would have been hunky-dory and okay with it? It was in reality O.J.’s black supporters and the black jury who were so blinded by their pain and hatred over generations of racism that they didn’t realize Fred Goldman was absolutely right: the case had nothing to do with racism, and what was really happening was that a man was on trial for a double murder he most likely committed, and they were letting him get away with it.
Even though Cochran is hated for helping a murderer get off, I feel this is largely unfair. He was only a defense attorney doing his job, and doing it pretty damn well. The real problem is he did his job better than anyone else associated with the trial from the judge to the prosecution and most definitely the jury which should have realized Cochran’s loyalty was first and foremost to his client, that the racism claims were horseshit, and made the right call.
What it shows is just how corrupt and flawed our supposed justice system really can be. The cops who beat Rodney King got away with it in 1992 because of racism, O.J. Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995 to get payback for that earlier verdict, then he was convicted in 2008 to get payback for the 1995 verdict. But none of these verdicts came about through genuine due process and people trying to deliver an impartial verdict based on justice.
The color of people’s skin and the undercurrent of racism was in the Simpson case an erroneous thread carefully laid there to inflame people’s emotions, and to be honest that’s all it really felt like it was here too.
I completely disagree that there wasn’t a racial undercurrent to the trial. Was it manufactured to play off black anger at injustices they had suffered? Of course it was but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a huge factor. And it was that feeling of being an outsider to the justice system that Get Out played upon and the liberal smugness that thinks they are so much more elevated than the racists of the past. It’s a movie with layers and the more I thought about it the more I loved it but it is also just entertaining as a thriller. It does both.
No, I agree that there was a racial undercurrent, but like you said it was manufactured to take advantage of people’s anger. But it didn’t need to be there. Because the murders themselves had nothing to do with race (a man who happened to be black was on trial for killing two people who happened to be white) and Simpson was treated better than any ordinary black man would have been if he were charged with murder by the LAPD, and even if Fuhrmann was a racist, there is no proof that he and the LAPD planted evidence, because they didn’t need to. All of it pointed to O.J., anyway, and his acquittal did nothing for the innocent African-Americans being beaten and falsely convicted of crimes in LA and all over the country before and after 1995. All the racial politics did was distort what was really going on in that case.
And I will rewatch the movie again. I do think it works a bit better as a thriller, albeit one which still has a disappointing conclusion.
Of course it didn’t have anything to do with the actual case. That’s the whole point. The black community had been so abused that they took this as a chance to get back and the attorneys played up to that. OJs standing in the community was irrelevant. Your missing the point of by focusing on the results.
I guess they could have ended it with everyone dying and the corruption remaining but the black friend rescuing his friend from this system worked for me. I would really pay attention to the auction scene. It is so well written. I also love the sunken place scenes.
Anyway I thought it managed that balance of entertainment with layers to think so well. I also like that it didn’t take the easy route with the redneck racist but took aim at uppity liberals who think we are post racist society
I don’t even understand what it is we’re arguing about in regards to the trial. It seems to me we’re both saying the same things, and I think we’re in perfect agreement about it, but you think otherwise? What was the point exactly? I thought the point of a fair trial was supposed to be to deliver an impartial verdict and decide whether the accused is guilty or not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
I feel like you aren’t thinking broad enough and are focused on the mechanics of the actual case and actual results. What I’m saying is that the history of black injustice impacted the jurrors and the trial and it is that feeling that Jordan Peele was tapping into.
What pisses me off is it seems like you and I just end up disagreeing whenever I comment on here these days. In this case it seems especially pointless because I don’t even disagree with you about the case. You said once you wished I could be just as vehement in my agreements with you as my disagreements, and talked about how boring the world would be if everyone had the same opinions, and now to complain that I’m not thinking exactly the way you want me to seems a bit hypocritical.
And I will point out that if the jury had focused more on the mechanics of the actual case, we might have gotten a fair verdict and better results.
Sorry. I didn’t really understand your criticisms I guess then and I didn’t feel like you were getting what I was trying to say. It wasn’t coming across right. Anyway take care