Nothing is what it appears

Rating: 10/10 (4 December 2017)

This film is so much more than your standard horror movie. If anything, it's much more a suspense movie with a devious twist. The plot is simple enough at first, girlfriend brings boyfriend to her place for uncomfortable meeting with her family. Sure, basic enough. But Jordan Peele has constructed a film that is anything but basic.
The interracial couple in and of itself can make people uncomfortable, and the ingratiating of a white family to the daughter's black boyfriend can also be its own thing easily. What Peele does is merge those two, and makes every seemingly accepting scene cringe-worthy no matter what race you may be. If you're white, the white people are embarrassing you. If you're black, you're feeling the discomfort of being in a place like this, and wondering if there isn't something underneath the apparent good words.
In that way, Peele encapsulates our society. White people invoking Barack Obama's name as though it gives them credibility among black people, for instance. Through each scene, you begin to wait for the other shoe to drop, and wonder what exactly it means when it happens.
When it does, the film brings the slow boil to a raging inferno, and the connections make themselves in a way that creates great suspense and terror until it all reaches its inevitable crescendo. Peele has, as such, built a perfectly frightening movie, and with its deep societal roots, it is intelligent, and its timeliness ensures its excellence and a historical place.
The acting is stupendous, and the twists are crazy good. The comic relief that Rod provides as a goofy TSA agent is a great counterbalance that not only taps into the comic genius that Peele is, but provides the viewer a momentary respite from the immediacy of Chris's plight.
10/10. See this movie and see it often.