Showing posts with label Get Out. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Get Out. Show all posts

Sunday, December 3, 2017

Welcome to Stepford

Film: Get Out
Format: HBO on hotel television.

When Get Out became the sudden darling of the movie world. I was intrigued. That happens with a horror movie now and then, and tends to happen with a horror movie that really deserves it. There was huge, worthy buzz surrounding films like It Follows, for instance, and while opinion is divided on The Blair Witch Project, there’s no denying that it was influential in no small part because of the huge sensation it caused. But, I don’t go to the theater that often. It’s been almost two years since I’ve sat down in a crowd to watch a film, and I knew that if it were big and important enough, it would show up on my television eventually. Well, it showed up on a hotel television, and that’s good enough for me.

Let’s first of all be honest about one thing: Get Out was hailed as being incredibly and fiercely original. It’s not. In many ways, it’s a racially-based riff on The Stepford Wives with a bit of Being John Malkovich thrown in for good measure. That’s simply true, and it also matters not in the least. That’s because Get Out feels incredibly new and original from the moment it starts to get a little odd to the third act when it spins into full-on, violent horror. Good filmmakers can make the old feel new and can give an old idea relevance in the modern world. That’s precisely what writer/director Jordan Peele has done here.