GET OUT

As Oscar watchers will confirm a fair number of last years big hitters dealt with the subject of race in one form or another. All these movies were fine in their own way yet why do I feel the best movie to tackle the subject of 'race' that I've seen in the past year is Jordan Peele's brilliant 'horror' film Get Out". This has been called Guess who's Coming to Dinner" crossed with Brian Yuzna's "Society" but in some respects that's doing it a disservice. It marks the directorial debut of writer and actor Peele and it brilliantly tackles the subject of racism by coating it in the patina of a genuinely scary and very disturbing horror picture.

Daniel Kaluuya is the smart, handsome, successful and black photographer who accepts his white girlfriend's invitation to spend the weekend with her family. An accident en route sets the tone even if the initial ecnounter with her parents is more than amicable, (her brothers reaction is a bit more worrying), and one look at the servants should be enough to convince Kaluuya's Chris that he really should get the hell out, that plus the advice of his best friend Rod not to go there in the first place. When grandad and his friends arrive for a party, things get seriously weird. Of course, Chris is intellectually, morally and in every other respect superior to everyone else, (and that's a clue in itself), and Peele isn't afraid to make his villains white, (he certainly never pussyfoots around with the issue), nor is he afraid to provide enough jump-out-of-your-seat moments, but the real frights in this film lie elsewhere, culminating in how Chris deals with the horrors of his situation.

It's a superbly acted picture and despite the seriousness at its heart, not without a streak of ghoulish humour. Kaluuya is a real find as is LilRel Howery as the resourceful Rod while Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener are terrific as his tormentors, (and there's a brilliantly unsettling turn from the great Stephen Root as a blind art-dealer with his own agenda). Yes, there is a touch of  "Society" here but Frankenhimer's "Seconds" is also wittily evoked; just don't call it  "Guess who's Coming to Dinner 2"

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