Get Out film review: A brilliant scary movie where casual racism is the unseen terror – City A.M.

In this Stepford Wives-style horror the unseen terror is casual racism and the insidious force is cultural whitewashing. And while that premise could easily descend into a liberal jumble of earnest back-slapping, Get Out is smart enough to balance its message with a wicked comic streak and some serious horror nous.

It follows a young interracial couple as the white girlfriend prepares to introduce her boyfriend to the folks back home. Alas, back home is a creepy suburb straight out of Halloween, where people of colour have fixed smiles and glassy eyes.

On one level its about the fears of a black man lost in the kind of white American neighbourhood where black men have a tendency to get shot, and on a wider level it explores how liberal Americans are fine with people of colour just so long as they act like white folk.

Get Out is also a cutting satire that both pokes fun at black peoples fears and preconceptions of white people theyre going to keep you as a sex slave! and sends up white, middle-class assumptions of how black people actually behave.

Neatly divided into three acts, director Jordan Peele throws the majority of the social commentary into the second part, touching upon various facets of racism: how its ever-present even when race isnt being directly discussed, how black bodies are fetishised (Come here and let me feel your muscles), and how platitudes only stop people from having real conversations (I would have voted for Obama a third time...). These scenes are every bit as watch-through-your-fingers uncomfortable as the more overt horror that follows.

This is more than just another comedy about racial tensions, however its also a slick scary movie that subverts your expectations at every turn. The narrative is commendably focused and the cinematography is chillingly minimal; one sequence even recalls Jonathan Glazers brilliant Under the Skin.

Horror movies have long been the forerunners for exploring cultural anxiety its a wonder we had to wait this long for Get Out, but now feels like as good a time as ever.

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Get Out film review: A brilliant scary movie where casual racism is the unseen terror - City A.M.

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero