What Wes Craven’s “Scream” did for slasher movies, Jordan Peele’s “Get Out” does for the psychological thriller/horror movie genre. Putting a clever spin the conventional, Peele crafts clichés and camp into a thrill ride that’s enjoyable from start to finish.
You know the basic set-up: the protagonist is a stranger in a strange land; the people they encounter act slightly odd. At first, the protagonist thinks it may be their paranoid perspective but, as other people’s behavior becomes stranger, they begin to learn the strangeness hides a more sinister truth. You’ve seen it in movies like “Rosemary’s Baby” where a pregnant woman slowly realizes she’s being used by a coven of witches or “The Stepford Wives” where a liberal housewife finds the domesticated docile behavior of neighborhood housewives is purposely programmed. In the same vein, debut director Peele mines the mechanics of those movies to his own end and makes a “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” scenario into a ‘guess who’s the dinner’ scare fest.
“Get Out’s” protagonist is Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), a budding and gifted NYC photographer, who drives upstate to meet his new girlfriend Rose’s (Allison Williams) parents for the weekend. Chris is black; Rose is white. Before they depart, Chris asks Rose if her parents know his race. Rose assures him her parents are liberal and open-minded, that her father would have voted for Obama a third time. As their drive nears Rose’s parents’ property, a minor collision with a deer has the attending white police officer ask for Chris’ license, though Rose was driving. With the seeds of suggested bigotry within Rose’s parents’ affluent community planted, they only begin to grow within Chris upon their arrival.
Upon meeting Rose’s parents, Chris is welcomed with hugs. Her father Dean (Bradley Whitford) is a successful doctor; her mother Missy (Catherine Keener) a psychiatrist. Entering the kitchen, Chris finds a black housekeeper named Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and, tending the grounds, a black man named Walter (Marcus Henderson). Dean sees Chris’s curiosity with Rose’s parents’ stereotypical staffing, but Dean assures Chris that Georgina and Walter were loyal caretakers for Dean’s parents who, after Dean’s parents’ demise, Dean didn’t have the heart to dismiss. Chris embarrassingly accepts this logical explanation over his prejudgment.
It’s only when Chris sneaks out into the backyard for a cigarette in the wee hours that things begin to get weird. He sees Georgina oddly admiring herself through her bedroom window as Walter sprints toward the surprised Chris only to break his run in another direction. Finding the home’s caretakers awake and behaving oddly becomes more surreal when Chris finds Missy seated in her therapy office having tea, seemingly waiting for Chris. Missy admonishes Chris for smoking, especially if he does it around her daughter. Missy offers to rid Chris of his bad habit through hypnosis. Asked to join her, Chris sits across from Missy, respectfully refusing her offer. But as Chris begins to talk to Missy, Missy slowly stirs her tea- what Chris didn’t bargain for lies in the beauty of Missy’s tea-stirring din.
The stirring of tea is just one clever surprise that Peele has in store and makes “Get Out” such a clever horror movie surprise. While the scene between Missy and Chris has all the allure of Angela Lansbury getting Laurence Harvey alone in “The Manchurian Candidate” to show him the Queen of Hearts playing card, Peele (having written “Get Out’s” screenplay) also includes scenes that recall and get the most out his obvious love for other psychological thrillers including “Psycho,” “The Wicker Man,” and “The Skeleton Key.”
Though Jordan Peele is best known as part of the Key and Peele comedy duo, his passion for this brand of horror is impressively astute. Backed by a breakthrough performance in Kaluuya as our protagonist proxy, Chris, “Get Out” gives its audience more than its macabre money’s worth. If you’re looking for a good, fun horror movie to see at a sold-out show, “Get Out’s” the ticket.