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Get Out brings British actor Daniel Kaluuya (Psychoville) to the fore in a US movie as Chris Washington, a young black man with a white girlfriend, Rose (Allison Williams); he’s off to meet her parents and assumes they’re uptight about the fact he’s black. But can he settle down a bit when he realises the family have a male and female servant who are also black?
Yes, the premise sounded a bit iffy being based all around the colour of someone’s skin when I thought Hollywood had got past all that, except when making period drama. However, the trailer (below) looked good as there’s a lot of ‘shock horror’ moments, and a mystery that needs resolving.
Naturally, I was expecting some weird stuff to start happening – which didn’t take too long to show up, such as how someone keeps unplugging his phone and guests at a party who are behaving like they’re possessed in some way, the whole setup feeling akin to Brian Yuzna’s Society, albeit not going anywhere near that in terms of gore, while throwing in a smidgen of a feeling of those old-style horror movies from the ’70s, but…
I’ve seen some pontificating reviews banging on about how this is a racial satire, and so on. Well, I came to see a horror film with a lot of scares in it. I got a film which met this partially. There’s a few scares but they’re so few and far between, plus it was over an hour before it felt like it was finally getting going… leading me to wish we’d get a solid half-an-hour of shocks to make it worth having sat there all this time… but then it just rehashed the kind of thing we’ve seen many times before in a film based around shocks, as it found its way towards a conclusion.
There were occasionally some interesting elements in this, but it’s not a film which demands the big screen. In addition, I could sit through this once, but it didn’t feel hugely comfortable to do so, given how disappointing I found it.
Get out of your head any thoughts of seeing this film and, for a better bet depending on who’s with you, go and see two other recent releases – Logan (another 15-certificate) or Kong: Skull Island (12-cert) – instead.
For a better ‘captive’ film within a family, check out Brit flick Mum & Dad on DVD.
As for my usual end credit adventures, I’m still waiting on a reply from Head Office after two moments when the lights behaved themselves gave way to the old HO practices coming back in, with the light practically bleaching the screen and killing the atmosphere at the end, so news will come as soon as I know.
Book tickets for Get Out at Vue Cinemas.
Get Out isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. Click on the poster for the full-size version.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 104 minutes
Studio: Universal Pictures Int (UK)
Cinema: Vue, Lowry, Salford Quays
Year: 2017
Format: 2.35:1 (ARRIRAW (3.4K))
Released: March 17th 2017
Rating: 4.5/10
Director: Jordan Peele
Producers: Jason Blum, Edward H Hamm Jr, Sean McKittrick and Jordan Peele
Screenplay: Jordan Peele
Music: Michael Abels
Cast:
Chris Washington: Daniel Kaluuya
Rose Armitage: Allison Williams
Missy Armitage: Catherine Keener
Dean Armitage: Bradley Whitford
Jeremy Armitage: Caleb Landry Jones
Walter: Marcus Henderson
Georgina: Betty Gabriel
Andrew Logan King: Keith Stanfield
Jim Hudson: Stephen Root
Rod Williams: Lil Rel Howery
Lisa Deets: Ashley LeConte Campbell
Gordon Greene: John Wilmot
Emily Greene: Caren Larkey
April Dray: Julie Ann Doan
Parker Dray: Rutherford Cravens
Philomena King: Geraldine Singer
Hiroki Tanaka: Yasuhiko Oyama
Roman Armitage: Richard Herd
Detective Latoya: Erika Alexander
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.