GET OUT (15)
INSPIRED by the creeping dread of The Stepford Wives, Jordan Peele’s slickly engineered horror is a razor-sharp satire, which takes a scalpel to simmering racial tensions in present day America.
When the script bares its polished teeth, it draws plenty of blood from the nail-biting battle of wits between a gifted black twentysomething artist and his white future in-laws, who believe voting for an African American president is a badge of honour.
Peele takes this clash of cultures to the unsettling extreme, engineering a series of hairpin twists that reveal the sick and twisted design behind his suburban nightmare.
In early scenes, including a horrific encounter with a deer, Get Out revels in our discomfort, creating a prickle of impending doom like an infuriating itch you can’t quite reach.
Once the Machiavellian masterplan is revealed, some of that tension dissipates and Peele’s film falls back on familiar tropes to resolve the stand-off.
London-born actor Daniel Kaluuya delivers a stellar performance as the unsuspecting lamb to the slaughter.
He plays gifted photographer Chris Washington, who is nervous about a road trip to meet the parents of his girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams).
Ignoring his pal’s warning, Chris drives with Rose to her parents’ pristine community, where he is warmly welcomed by Dean Armitage (Bradley Whitford) and his psychiatrist wife, Missy (Catherine Keener).
Dean gives Chris a tour of the house, avoiding the basement – “We had to seal it up – black mould down there” – and attempts to put the young man’s concerns to rest by confessing his political allegiances.
However, something about the neighbourhood feels out of kilter.
Get Out is a smart and sophisticated descent into psychological hell.
Whitford and Keener relish their dark, ambiguous roles as parents who are determined to create an American dream, by fair means or foul.