98% on Rotten Tomatoes and the film of 2017
It’s somewhat fitting that Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, Get Out, lands on Netflix on the same day that the Oscars are announced because at the 90th Academy Awards, the horror film was nominated for four awards, including Best Picture.
It won for Best Original Screenplay – a seismic achievement for the genre and writer-director alike.
Made for just $4.5 million, the horror/satire would prove to be one of the most profitable films of all time after grossing $255 million worldwide. Aside from this, it also did that rare thing for any horror, it received universal critical acclaim and seeped into the cultural zeitgeist.
At the time of its release, we hailed Get Out as the most important film of the year and that sentiment has been echoed by plenty of people that have seen it since.
In terms of the plot, the film follows Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and his girlfriend (Allison Williams). Now that they have reached the meet-the-parents milestone of dating, she invites him for a weekend getaway upstate with her folks, Missy (Catherine Keener) and Dean (Bradley Whitford).
At first, Chris thinks that the family’s overly-accommodating behaviour is just a nervous attempt to deal with their daughter’s interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he could have never imagined.
Throughout the film, Peele expertly balances the tension and comedy.
Imagine something like Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner made in the spirit of Rosemary’s Baby. In doing so, Get Out reveals something that’s very insidious about modern society in America while making some genuinely insightful social and cultural observations.
At present, the film has a rating of 98% on Rotten Tomatoes and 84% on the more reliable Metacritic.
In their review, The Guardian said that “It’s rare for a studio horror film to feel this fresh and daring and it’s arrived at a frighteningly topical moment for a country where racism is scarier than ever” while Rolling Stone called Get Out “A jolt-a-minute horrorshow laced with racial tension and stinging satirical wit”.
If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s time to change that.
Get Out is now available to watch on Netflix.
