October is a rather fun time for movie reviews, at least for me. There’s a bit of a lull in horror movies this year (with one exception that I will get to in due time), so that gives me ample opportunities to talk about my favorite movies in the genre. Last year, I reviewed and gushed over Evil Dead 2, since I consider that my personal favorite, but looking back on that, I think reviewing one favorite was doing the versatility of the horror genre injustice. So, starting today, I’ll be doing a series of reviews building up to one on Halloween, each on my favorite movies about a genre or trope of horror movies. Some of these will be fairly old and well-remembered horror movies, but I’m using Get Out as my introductory review to make up for lost time. This was a recent movie, and I was an absolute fool for not reviewing it when it hit theaters, because it just might be the best of the films I’m about to review for the season, and I have NO reservations about calling it a modern classic.
Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is nervous about the trip he’s taking with his girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), and he has every reason to be in spite of Rose’s reassurances. After all, he’s the first black boyfriend Rose ever had, and they’re visiting her well-off family in order to introduce Chris to her parents. Thankfully, introductions go well (possibly too well), and Rose’s parents seem to make good on her promise that Chris’s race doesn’t matter to them. Even then, though, Chris’s unease is far from extinguished, what with the strange behavior among the Armitage family’s housekeepers and the peculiar compliments Rose’s parents keep giving him about his physique. Even the festivities that await him and the Armitage family at their weekend get-together cannot sate his curiosity, and as Chris investigates the family’s intentions, he discovers that their plans were worse than he could have ever imagined, and that more sinister ends are waiting in the wings, not just for Chris, but for those aligned with the family as well.
The plot synopsis above is arguably the most difficult I’ve ever had to write, especially since I’m sure that there are people that this movie initially passed by, like me. For all the acclaim and fans this movie has accumulated since it’s release, though, I think the only way to truly enjoy it is to go in knowing as little as possible, so in the interest of that, I’ll be skating around the details in an attempt to recommend Get Out in every spoiler-free way that I can muster. To start, the film as a whole frames itself as a sort of social horror-thriller along the lines of The Stepford Wives or a good Twilight Zone episode, so it should come as know surprise that it’s paced as well as it is. Nothing about the Armitage family’s deeper motives is readily apparent, but the story is never tedious in how deliberately it moves, and it helps that Jordan Peele’s sharp, satirical script and keen direction adds an additional layer of all-encompassing unease and even some humor when most effectively needed. The acting is also remarkably on point, with Daniel Kaluuya being flawlessly endearing as Chris and Allison Williams being an unambiguously perfect casting choice as Rose in ways that contribute to Get Out’s “modern classic” status. What really makes that distinction so true, however, is the deeper social commentary going on and the expert cinematic execution behind the already-relevant themes. As expected of what amounts to a horror spin on “Guess who’s Coming to Dinner”, this movie is, as expected, about racial tension, but in a more indirect way than lesser filmmakers would put together. Jordan Peele is not lesser filmmaker, and so his take on the social horrors of racism is less about out-and-out bigots and more about the implied racism (or at least, the inherent insensitivity) of insisting that racism isn’t a problem. Don’t let the parents fool you: race is a factor of the horror in Get Out, but the ways in which it is part of the horror is so perfectly profound (as are the performances, cinematography, and mind-blowing twists) that I must insist that everyone see it. There’s only so much that the word of an amateur like me can do for this masterpiece.
Rich Reviews 