As the year is gradually seeping into the shills of summer, it appears that the traditional hit movies are coming back in sequels including the Spider-Man, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Planet of the Apes. However, in the midst of this string of pending adrenaline-filled action movies, director Jordan Peele has instead brought a thriller movie “Get Out” to the theater.
“Do they know I’m black?” starts off the whole scene in already a creepy atmosphere. The protagonist Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), an African American, heads to his white girlfriend Rose’s house (Allison Williams) for a weekend trip in order to meet her parents. Understandably apprehensive that Rose did not inform her parents about his race, Chris meets her hypnotherapist mother, Missy (Catherine Keener) and her neurologist father, Dean (Bradley Whitford).
The real horror sweeps in when Chris finds himself staring into the eyes of a dead deer, which ultimately hints at all the series of forthcoming horror that floods in. From the terrifying scream of repetitive “my man!” of Dean to the lost stares and of other domestic housekeepers at the house, the short trip to this Armitage home leaves the audience in a subtle horror throughout the film.
What is completely fresh about this movie is that it is a different thriller. No typical ghosts, no typical thunders, no typical booms. Rather, the theme and the message that the movie carries surely sends chills down the spine. The satire that “Get Out” brings to the table targets the deeply rooted racism that exists within the boundary of political lines. Rose’s superbly liberal parents draws the line to an extent where some strange things start taking place in this supposedly liberal town.
Truthfully, those who usually enjoy rather traditional horror, ones that only require some unexpected ghost pop-ups and booming soundtracks, may not enjoy as much. Most of the criticism comes from such group of people who merely understands how this mix of hypnotization and racism reaches out to them as “horror”.
Yet the majority of audience seems to enjoy this new type of horror. Discomfort shudders through the entire film; Jordan Peele has successfully made a horror movie that keeps the audience permanently uneasy throughout the film. He fills it up with trivial, surreal images that set the audience on the edge of their chairs. Everything is just a little off! As it progresses, the story becomes more and more bizarre, eventually reaching to the point of complete madness, but Peele lays the path so carefully that it works in context. This is another horror, a smarter horror.