The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

The student newspaper of Bucks County Community College

The Centurion

Loading Recent Classifieds...

A Look Into the Horror Comedy ‘Get Out’

Jordan Peele’s horror comedy breathes life into the horror genre with the focus on unease and tension rather than cheap scare tactics.
“Get Out” does an amazing job of creating the fear of a killer like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees, into that of smiling, “friendly” white people, but without becoming preachy. Racism is used heavily as a story device, but by the end it’s clear that racism is the only fear Chris shouldn’t be worried about.
Daniel Kaluuya plays as Chris Washington, a successful photographer going with his girlfriend (Allison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time. With this being “uncharted territory” for her parents, Chris shows concern that she never mentioned to them that he is black.
The concern is well deserved, but for the wrong reasons. Neither parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener, seem racist. But everything and everyone in the suburbs is off, from their mannerisms of the family, friends, and workers, Chris can’t help but feel something is wrong, and expresses concern to his girlfriend and friend Rod, Milton Howery, over the phone.
From the trailers alone it may be a surprise to hear that this is a horror comedy movie, as its solely been advertised as a horror film. One look at the director, Jordan Peele, who’s best known for his comedy skit shown “Key & Peel”, it would make sense that his work as a comedian would not go unused. Characters crack jokes and one-liners, with Rod doing an excellent job of relaying what the general movie-goer is thinking and making the general tropes and clichés the horror genre uses into something to laugh about.
With comedy being a portion of the movie, it is not what anyone would say a gut-buster. “Get Out” is, first and foremost, a horror movie, and relies on the feeling of unease and tension rather than the norm of jump-scares, which is used rarely. The film builds this unease through the majority of the movie, and as soon as the revelations are revealed, the movie transitions and relieves all feelings of unease and dread in the third act over a 30 or so minute slaughter fest that relieves stress the audience themselves have been feeling since the beginning.
While Jordan Peele does such a wonderful job of straying away from general horror clichés, there are a few instances where these clichés poke through and worsen the experience. Excessively loud increases in musical score, jump scares, and gore are seen rarely, but when they do show up they stand out and overall feel cheap when the rest of the movie pokes fun at the overused clichés seen in the horror genre.
For performances, all actors do a wonderful job of acting human, which shouldn’t need to be addressed, but for a genre known for making the characters as ignorant as possible it should be noted. Daniel Kaluuya does a great job of acting natural while also trying to be as polite as possible in a truly uncomfortable situation.
“Get Out” has its jump scares and cheap scare tactics, but brings a heavy amount of original ideas and aspects that the horror genre has been missing for so long; making the main characters relatable and aware of their own concerns. “Get Out” does not show an ignorant teenage walking into their doom, or foolish adults believing the world can’t hurt, but rather an intellectual normal person who can be defined as more than “soon-to-be-dead”.