Okay, I’m very late to the party on this one, as it was pretty much the biggest hit of last year. And now it’s nominated for 4 oscars (best picture, best director, best actor, best original screenplay). Now, I haven’t seen Lady Bird yet, and there have been so many ecstatic reviews of it that I hesitate to say that Get Out is the best movie of this oscar year that I’ve seen. But I think it’s fair to say, it’s the best I’ve seen so far, and knocks the socks off best picture rivals Dunkirk (which I liked) and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (which I really didn’t).
I’ve heard Get Out described as a horror comedy. And my reaction is – no no no… this is not The Evil Dead. This is a proper all-out scaaaaaaaary film, right from the tone-setting opening scene. It reminded me a lot of the original version The Wicker Man, in that you spend a most of the film waiting for something terrible to happen, and then when it does happen it’s even more sinister than you thought it was going to be. That film has dated a fair bit though, and perhaps isn’t so scary to modern audiences. Get Out, on the other hand, is about the underlying violence of cultural racism, which means that you constantly have the sense that the film doesn’t even need to stray into the supernatural or the fantastical to generate its shocks. A very real and everyday horror could intervene at any moment.
If you have already seen it, incidentally, and you haven’t seen director Jordan Peele’s commentary on the alternate ending, consider that an extra little recommendation, free of charge. (God that is bleak.)
Current Favourite Part:
All of it. I would have recommended this film 3 times if I could…