Get Out (2017)

 

Genre: Horror/ Thriller

Time: 1h 44mins

Director: Jordan Peele

Quick Summary: A young African-American visits his white girlfriend's parents for the weekend, where his simmering uneasiness about their reception of him eventually reaches a boiling point.

I knew something was up when the dad pronounced ecosystem like “echo-system”

As far as thrillers go, this is good. It has brilliant tension build-up, a creepy atmosphere, and little hints of what's going on sprinkled throughout. That said it's nowhere near being a brilliant one. For how long it takes to actually get to the meat of the twist because we have this constant theme of “creepily awkward moment where it's overly nice and happy to hide what's actually going on” flashed now and again. Which really I think is to break up how boring this film can be because in between those moments, nothing really happens.Which is why I also liked the addition of Rob, the comedic relief. His character was over the top and played that way for laughs I think, but it was nice to have small bursts of him. 

I have seen this film before so I was already aware of the twist, and I'm not sure if I can comment on it since I knew about it before the first time I watched it. There are a lot of things that lead up to it to keep you guessing, and the reveal is okay too if you're someone who doesn't watch films often. It's predictable for the majority aside from one or two things, I won't spoil them but I will say TSA and the Girlfriend. Those I actually did not see coming originally, so I'm glad there was still some surprise to it.

For those like me who have seen this before, there are so many little things to this that hint at what's going on. I've seen this film a few times now and I pick up something new every single time. It's really clever really, with tons of little metaphors, themes, casual sayings that are to be read two ways, subtle comments and things around.

I do think it focused way too much on the first and second acts of the film, which I understand needed the build-up of events and paranoia, but we just didn't get enough time with the third act. It was the most interesting part of this film too, by miles. There was so much to unpack with it and so much depth could have been given. We only get barely a scratch on the surface there compared to the depths earlier in the film. There's too much detail in the wrong places.

Visuals are another good point for this. Jordan Peele knows where to put the camera so we can see everything he wants us to see without things being conveniently centre of the screen. The Sunken Place is the main highlight though, as it's easy to see that place is conveying the feeling of being controlled brilliantly. 

Whilst this is predictable in places, it's not bad at all. There's humour to it at times, laughing about how casual racism can be or some funny jokes placed throughout. I don't think it's his best, but it's still good.

7/10