Get out

Dir Jordan Peele, US 2017 On UK release from 17 March

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is about to visit his in-laws for the first time, but is extremely anxious about meeting them because they are white and his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) has yet to tell them that Chris is black. Upon arrival, his feeling of unease only increases, not just because Rose’s parents inadvertently alienate him by telling him how much they like black people, but also because something seems to be terribly wrong with the black staff employed by this white family. After an intense impromptu therapy session with Rose’s psychiatrist mother, things get weirder and weirder, and Chris begins to wonder if he should just get the hell out of here.

The film opens with an eerie scenario that quickly establishes a link to the tragic murder of African-American teen Trayvon Martin, and it instantly becomes clear that writer-director Jordan Peele is not afraid to address the nature of contemporary racism in his directorial debut. As the white people overcomensate in trying to reassure Chris that they accept him, it only proves that they see him as a skin colour first and a human being second. What makes this approach powerful, however, is that these are not your usual racist caricatures – they are the wellmeaning liberal elite, completely unaware of their own hypocrisy. On top of the brilliantly satirical social commentary, Peele expertly taps the more conventional unease associated with horror as the film progresses, creating effective scares while unwrapping the sinister plot at the core of the film. While some of the scares may be conventional, what makes the film something special is not just how seamlessly it blends satire and horror, but the fact that the story is told from the perspective of people of colour, a notably underrepresented demographic in terms of mainstream horror. As a result, Get Out is an original, tense and sharply satirical horror film that is well worth the price of admission.