Jon The Blogcentric

I admit I was very late on the draw for watching Get Out. Could’ve been the schoolwork I had to deal with or I just didn’t rush out like I should’ve. I finally had the chance to see it a month ago and I can easily see why it’s one of the best films of 2017.

The story begins with a young black man abducted on the street. Soon after, black photographer Chris Washington is packing with white girlfriend Rose Armitage for a meet-the-parents visit. Rose insists to Chris that his race won’t matter, even though he is her first black boyfriend. Chris says goodbye to his friend Rod, a black TSA agent, and insists to him things will be fine. On the ride there with Rose driving, they hit a deer. The police visit the two and the white officer wants to look at Chris’ identification, even though he wasn’t driving. It took Rose’s intervention to stop this.

The two arrive at the home where they meet Rose’s brain-surgeon father Dean, hypnotist mother Missy and student brother Jeremy. All three make discomfiting comments about black people. Additional uneasiness to Chris comes when he notices housekeeper Georgina and groundskeeper Walter, both black, show strange behavior. Things get even weirder when Chris steps outside to smoke and notices Walter sprinting through the grounds and Georgina prowling through the house.

To try and take his mind off things, Missy gives Chris a hypnotherapy session to cure his smoking. During the session, he’s taken back to his childhood and the memory of his mother’s hit-and-run death: a death he feels guilty of. After that comes the void Missy calls ‘the sunken place.’

Chris wakes up the next morning wanting to think it was all a nightmare. Instead he’s surprised to learn that cigarettes turn him off and Walter even confirms Chris was in Missy’s office. Chris also notices Georgina unplugged his phone leaving the battery to die, but she claims it was an accident.

The next day, Chris is at a get-together hosted by the Armitage with dozens of wealthy couples; most of them white. However the topic is almost always the same from person to person. They all ask about his race and even bring up talk of prominent black figures. The only person who doesn’t bring up race is Jim Hudson, a blind art dealer, who takes an interest in Chris’s photography.

Chris meets one other black person at the party. His name’s Logan; he’s married to a white woman and he acts rather strangely. Chris telephones his friend Rod and lets him know of all the suspicious activity at the Armitage house. Chris snapped a flash photo of Logan from his phone, but Logan’s personality changes to a hostile manner, shouting for him to ‘get out.’

Despite Dean claiming it’s an epileptic seizure, Chris isn’t fooled. He knows there’s something wrong happening and persuades Rose to leave with him. Meanwhile Rod notices the Logan in the photo is Andre Hayworth: the man who went missing earlier. Rod tried to get his police department to go to the Armitage household, get Chris, and arrest whoever’s involved. His colleagues all think it’s a joke. Rod is on his own.

As Chris is about to leave, Chris comes across photos of Rose with other black boyfriends. As he tries to leave, Chris is blocked by the family from leaving and even Rose is part of the heist to abduct him. Jeremy acts violent but as Chris tries to fight back, Missy imposes hypnosis to make him weaker. While wrapped in bondage in a chair, Chris watches a video from Rose’s grandfather Roman where they take the brains of white people and puts them into black people. The host remains in the ‘sunken place’: watching but powerless. Hudson tells Chris through the screen he wants his body for his sight and his artistic talents. Meanwhile Rod telephones Rose to find out what’s happening, but Rose declines, making like Rod is a past boyfriend.

The night before surgery, Chris puts the cotton stuffing from the chair in his ears to block the hypnosis. The day of a surgery is when Chris has to make his getaway. The movie ends with a lot of surprises– including some surprising facts about the surgery — but it ends with the pleasing ending many would have hoped for.

This is a rarity. A horror film where racism is one of the main themes of the film. The story starts out as something simple: boyfriend meets girlfriends’ parents. The fact that he’s black shouldn’t make that much of a deal. I mean Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was 50 years ago and lots has changed, right? You get the first impression race will be a topic when they hit a deer and Chris is asked for his identification. It becomes further evident when Chris is with Rose’s family and the father brings up Jesse Owens. I was actually surprised to see how often race was brought up in conversations between Chris. It was always a topic in Chris’ conversations with people, if not the first. And then a case of mental enslavement: white brains in black bodies. I notice the familiarity here.

I’m sure race has a lot to do with the police scenarios, but even then, there was one area that didn’t seem about race. That’s when Rod describes the situation to the police and all three laugh. The three Rod talked to were of various races, even one black woman. I felt that was trying to send me a message that even African Americans in the police force look at their own in a negative light. The end definitely had something to say. A cop car arrives with Rose shot and dying on the ground and Chris thinks he’s about to get arrested, only for Rod to be the cop. Glad to see it gave a happy ending. I think it was also trying to say something; about the importance of having friends who know the truth.

Even without the subject of race, this stands out as a psychological thriller in its own right. One of the difficulties of horror or thriller movies is including supernatural or paranormal things without looking ridiculous. The theme of hypnosis and mind control really makes itself present in a smart way. The inclusion of such themes even the addition of the brain surgery right in the family’s house didn’t look cheesy at all, fitting well within the story. Showing how Chris broke the mind-control aspect when he took a photo of Andre/Logan is shown intelligently and added to the story without looking ridiculous. The scene near the end where Walter shoots himself after shooting Rose didn’t appear dumb as it showed this mind-control was something only death can free them of.  Even the goriness of the deaths didn’t look dumb. In summary, all the thriller or horror aspects had to make sense in order for them to work, and they did.

This film had to be 2017’s ‘sleeper success.’ The film made its debut at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival. Lately Sundance movies haven’t been as big of a draw to the box office as they were ten or even twenty years ago. This film really caught people’s attention and grossed $176 million at the box office. It was no wonder it would be one of the stand-out films of 2017. It reminds you that 2017 wasn’t such a bad year in movies after all, and Get Out was one of the highlights. Get Out also contributed highly to the resurgence of the horror/thriller genre. Sure, the biggest news came from It, but Get Out is admired for its ability to create an original story and even add African-American elements to the horror genre, which is extremely rare.

The person who deserves the most acclaim here is writer/director Jordan Peele. He is one driven person. Past work of his includes acting and writing for MadTV as well as stand-up comedy. This is his first feature-length film as a writer and director and it really stands out because of its excellent story line. Also excellent is the lead acting from Daniel Kaluuya. He succeeded in making a performance in a horror movie three-dimension: something very rare. There were also good standout supporting performances from Lil Red Howery as Rod. Makes sense as Rod was the comic relief. Also a good scene-stealer was Betty Gabriel. Her portrayal as Marianne/Georgina best personified what it was like to be under this mind-control lobotomy. Smiling on the outside, but mentally-enslaved on the inside. Alison Williams also made a good villain, switching from the loving girlfriend to helping the family get their next ‘slave.’

Get Out did two things that most people would believe is impossible to do nowadays. The first is create a horror film that is as intense as it is smart. The second is for an African-American to create such a horror film. The film achieves all that, and more.