Jordan Peele, best known as one half of Key & Peele, unnerves with his feature debut, skilfully adopting a horror framework to poke and prod at existing racial tensions. In it, Daniel Kaluuya delivers a breakout performance as Chris, a young black man travelling to the suburbs to meet his significant others’ family. The innocence of an otherwise normal situation is undercut by a sense of unease that’s extended – and built upon – to brilliant effect. As time passes, Chris makes a few odd discoveries that lead way to something darker. Peele clearly has a knack for sharp observations about race – and those here are scarily applicable to current political movements. The fact that the situation is far fetched, yet still firmly embedded in the reality ensures that it strikes a particularly raw nerve. The direction is controlled, the script peppered with uneasy humour and the acting terrific, namely from Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener as the two parents, both disquieting and duplicitous. It’s not an out-and-out horror in the traditional sense, but Get Out provokes and scares without the need for false scare tactics.
