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Get Out

8/10

Stars: Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford, Marcus Henderson, LilRel Howery, Betty Gabriel, Caleb Landry Jones

Director: Jordan Peele

Horror fans should lose no time in seeking out this highly superior example of the genre. Chris (Britain's Kaluuya) and his girlfriend Rose (Williams) are heading upstate to meet her (white patrician) family. Chris is worried that they don't know he's black. Rose insists it won't matter. And it won't, though not quite how Chris might realise...

Once there, Chris is made welcome by Rose's right-thinking parents, Dean (Whitford), a surgeon, and Missy (Keener), a hypnotherapist, and Rose's oddball brother (Jones). He finds the (black) servants, housekeeper Georgina (Gabriel) and gardener Walter (Henderson) slightly strange and other-worldly. Hypnotised by Missy, Chris is taken back to his childhood and thinking he could have done something to prevent his mother's death on a hit-and-run.

Waking, he finds he is cured of a craving for cigarettes, but remembers little of the previous evening and is later plagued by nightmares. And his mobile is mysteriously unplugged, preventing him from contacting his friend Rod (Howery).

By the time the guests arrive for a garden party, it's clear something pretty strange is going on. There's something very Stepford Wivish here, although all the guests are quite elderly, with the exception of the mixed-race husband of one. When Chris takes his photograph, he is horrified to find the man charging towards him, yelling 'Get out!'...

Borrowing from Seconds and other horror staples, but adding touches of his own, debutant director Peele has given us a first-class chiller, the kind that not only will send shivers up your spine, but also contains no blood or violence until the last reel. Get In to this one.

David Quinlan

USA 2017. UK Distributor: Universal. Fujicolor.
104 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 1, Swearing 2.

Review date: 17 Dec 2017