Get Out

There's a bit of a nervous director's claw in the horror scenes, and as a result the finale doesn't destroy you as much as it should, but up until that point it's such an apt and poignant escalation of the "black mask" issue that it's just impossible not to enjoy it. I'm rooting for commercial success to the hilt. As the cliché goes: it makes it real. Tarantino must have snorted with delight at this one. (29/04/2017)

I've seen a lot of poor horror movies lately that have been praised by American critics only because they were gender-progressive or originated in an exotic country and themed some form of oppression. At first glance, Get Out seems exactly like the "we have an explosive racial topic that someone has dealt with in all its explicitness" case, but from the opening scene Peele gives the impression that he is a) an excellent screenwriter who calmly turns a social metaphor into a grotesque slasher without the structure disintegrating, b) a director able to work with subliminal tension, which is guaranteed to escape the local horror experts, but certainly not an audience with a certain degree of cultivated attention to detail. The first third is a socially relevant metaphor for black masks, the middle builds tension, and the final acts offers peppery catharsis. Together, the acts make a film that is a more intelligent and serious reflection of racial identity for me than the whole of Moonlight. I was only bothered by a little superfluous ethereal music and a few places where you can see inside Get Out more than one would like. Otherwise, it’s great. (27/04/2017)

The film features excellent screenwriting and above all directing, with a strange white panopticon, a properly soaked racist mindset, and above all the insistent feeling of "what the fuck...?". The intensity, where you pray that the plot will keep moving and you will learn a little more, works mainly because the protagonist maintains a rational approach throughout and the plot never once allows him to slip into a genre crutch. Moreover, this is brilliantly caricatured by the character of the best friend, who both introduces and breaks down traditional creative practices by commenting on upcoming events over the phone. It's terribly simple and yet perfectly thought out and embellished in detail, a work of art straight out of a magazine. 4 ½. (20/07/2017)

I was a bit concerned this would turn into another campaign for the rights of the American minority, of which there is enough everywhere these days. Partially it did, but the story was written in such a way that it didn’t get annoying. By that I mean that I had a pretty good time watching it, because the mean white people were really sneaky, Daniel Kaluuya was impressively flashing his eyeballs, and Rod's visit to the police station was hilarious. I just wouldn't go so far as to call this a horror film. (03/01/2020)

Earning USD 150 million at the US box office with a budget of less than five million dollars? Jason Blum is the man. And it seems that a new age of black directing talent is at hand. The atmosphere of Get Out is reminiscent of the works of Stephen King, and had it been based on one of his books, it would have been one of the best King adaptations ever. The psychological horror formula, intensely and courageously built on the sensitive issue of racism, will send chills down your spine. Flawlessly directed with intelligent social insight, the movie is effective thanks both to the tension between the characters and purely genre elements (jump scares, raising of the tension using visual tricks). If it had a cleverer ending, it would be a work with precision reaching the level of Shyamalan’s famous trilogy. [ArcLight Santa Monica] (30/03/2017)