Get Out

It's a truth universally acknowledged that white people are, in fact, The Worst. But just in case you needed a refresher on the subject, by all means check out Get Out, the debut feature film from writer-director Jordan Peele, perhaps best known as one-half of the comedy duo Key and Peele. Peele's appreciation for the horror genre often bled into sketches on the duo's TV series, and it reaches full bloom in this unsettling, mordantly funny, tremendously-crafted and thought-provoking "social thriller" (to use Peele's phraseology).

Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) has been dating Rose (Allison Williams) for a few months, and it's time to meet the parents. This is usually nerve-wracking enough but Rose, who's white, hasn't informed her parents that her new man is African-American, something that can't help put Chris a little on edge, despite Rose's claims her dad is so small-l liberal he would have Obama for a third time.

And, indeed, Dean and Missy (Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener, perfect casting) are friendly and welcoming. Sure, a few things at the isolated family estate seem a little strange, then a lot strange, but it's got to be the usual clumsy, well-intentioned actions of people trying desperately to make a good impression or at least not make a bad one, right? There certainly couldn't be anything sinister at play, could there?

Spoiler alert: there definitely could. But it's to Peele's credit that the awkwardness of a poorly-phrased attempt at a compliment put the audiences as much on edge as the traditional horror-movie scenarios (the filmmaker is equally adept at both things, by the way - he's clearly an apt student of genre conventions but also has a keen eye for everyday encounters full of meaning and portent).

Get Out puts you in the hands of a supremely confident writer-director, one with clarity of purpose and strength of imagination. It's chilling and confronting in all the best possible ways.