After the completion of my three part review of Cohen Brother’s films I have decided to embark on a series of reviews of a genre of film I know little to nothing about. Horror films have always been something that I haven’t been able to handle and hence I wanted to jump in and give my somewhat ill-informed opinion on what I think worked and failed in the three ‘horror films’ I watched in succession.
I decided to base my opinion on these films on the following cinematic and narrative elements; narrative, sound, mise-en-scene (acting/staging, costume, lighting and setting and the overall message and themes.
Get Out
“The scariest thing about Get Out was the racism!”
The first film I decided to watch and review was Jordan Peele’s directing debut, Get Out. Get Out, featuring Daniel Kaluuya of Skins fame and an ensemble cast of well established television and film actors including Bradley Whitford (West Wing) and Allison Williams (Girls) tells the tale of an african american man (Kaluuya) and his white girlfriends’ (Williams) weekend away to her families’ estate in Upstate New York. Peele then goes on to portray the harrowing and terrifying (and racist) series of events that ensued.
On the surface Get Out was successful in portraying an incredibly scary narrative about a racist white family and the main protagonist’s plight for survival, but I believe the beauty of Peele’s debut picture lies under the surface of the film, through the use of a number of brilliantly executed cinematic techniques such as the daunting use of sound throughout the film to the excellently written dialogue Peele is able to deliver the wake-up call that both the film industry and the world desperately needed.
On the surface Peele looks to educate the audience about the dangers of such overt racism but it is through the most subtle elements of the film that Peele paints the much broader and terrifying picture that African American and dark skinned people across the world face, the subtle, alienating elements of racism. From the gripping ‘sunken place’ sequences to the body language of the white actors Peele paints an incredibly vivid and essentially overt picture of what black people have to face not only in the US but worldwide.
For me personally I believe that the acting in this picture not only aided Peele in his ambitions to educate the viewer but it was also responsible for creating a tense and importantly a scary film. Paranoid and edgy performances from the entire cast successfully created an incredibly tense atmosphere and importantly it helped build the tension as the film went on. Peele also used the very impressive acting to provide visual cues ot both narrative elements and overall cues, a key example of would be the the subtle and overt (Catherine Keener and Celeb Jones characters in particular) aggression shown to Kaluuya’s character. This aggression was used by Peele very effectively in providing overall cues alluding to the overt racial overtones of the film and to also provide cues to narrative twists in the film but to also adds to the gut wrenching tension that the movie had on offer.
The sound that Peele used in the film also played an incridbly important role in the making of the film. Sound is agrubaly the most important aspect of the horror genre (try watch a scary film without sound) and it is essential to building tension and scaring the wits out of viewers. From the incredibly tense strings used in the scene when Marcus Henderson’s character sprinted past Kaluuya in the middle of the night to the insufferable rattling of the spoon hitting the tea cup Peele used sound extremely well and it translated into an increased heart rate for most viewers.
Get Out is the first horror film that I watched since my walk out during Paranormal Activity 2 at Hoyts in 2009 and did a terrific job in reintroducing me into the genre. Get Out had everything I personally think a horror film needs and more important unlike the overwheling majority of horror flicks it had an incredibly important overlying message. To sum it up Peele did an exceptional job and nearly scared me to death.
8.8/10
I wrote this review after reading the SBS News article linked below, I, like the vast majoirty of white viewers overlooked a number of the more subtle elemetns of the film that are referenced incredibly obvious references to the effects and horrors of all types of racism. I would advise everyone to read the article below, I found it incredbly useful and am going to read more articles from the three contributors.
http://www.sbs.com.au/movies/article/2017/05/12/when-were-not-entertaining-you-you-hate-us-get-out-related-roundtable-about-race
Article Rating
10/10
AG