Original, impressive horror that emerges as a nice surprise

Rating: 10/10 (30 January 2018)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) and Rose Armitage (Allison Williams) are a mixed race couple, who are travelling to meet Rose's parents, Missy (Catherine Keener) and Dean (Bradley Whitford), a retired neuro-surgeon, for the weekend. While they seem fairly nice, Chris can't help but pick up loads of subtle little knocks at his African American heritage (most notably, learning Dean's grandfather was robbed of his dream at the 1936 Olympics by Jesse Owens.) One night, Missy puts Chris under a teacup induced hypnotic trance, and from there he finds himself plunged into a series of increasingly twisted events, from which he ends up battling for survival.
The horror genre is in a pretty desperate state of affairs at the moment, certainly not a patch on its heyday twenty/thirty years ago. When they're not remaking old classics, they're just making films that rely on cheap jump scares in place of anything that really gets under your skin. And so, it's a really nice surprise when something like Get Out comes along, which gives you faith that there's still life in the old dog yet. First time director Jordan Peele gets back to basics with what traditionally made the genre so great, in a film that's also from the producers of such hits as Insidious and The Gift.
Peele understands that a creepy air of mystery and a foreboding sense of the unknown are far more effective tools than cheap shocks and gore, and what works in Get Out's favour so well is a genuinely intriguing and exciting story that really leaves you wondering what is going on, when it will kick off and how it will all work out. It's brave, as well, tackling the themes of an inter-racial relationship in the modern world, and constructing one of the most paranoid and outlandish reasons for what could be behind it. There's some light and humour, as well, with subtle little digs and nods thrown in that few will be unlikely to pick up on.
As a horror fan, this emerges as a genuinely pleasant surprise, and my only regret is that I didn't see it sooner. *****