Score: 9/10
I am not a fan of horror movies. I have never been a fan of horror movies, although I have watched many. This is mainly because I hate jump scares, I hate them with all my being, the second reason being I can’t usually take them serious enough to get scared. And if a horror movie does not scare you even a little bit then it is clearly not doing its job. Get Out does not have a problem in the scaring department, being by far one of the most unsettling films I have ever seen. It is powerful, amazingly paced and a true revelation of 2017, being on course to being declared the best movie of the year by a lot of critics.
The best thing about Get Out is the pacing. You feel the tension growing from the first scene of the film up until the very last second before the big reveal. You feel the stress of the main character, you feel that there is something happening behind the curtains. This build up is punctuated by moments of pure terror, but not the usual in your face terror of horror films. No, here we have interesting terror that springs out of nothing. I have never been more shocked by a simple deer jumping in the middle of the road. Up until the action starts, you can find a lot of these simple suggestions that something is wrong, and this art of making you feel uneasy is simply brilliantly constructed, especially for a first time director such as Jordan Peele.
The characters are perfectly developed, and you have time to get to know their depths before the action starts. The slow build up is also present in this development, and we uncover fact after fact from the characters back story, making us get more and more involved with their motives as the story progresses. Daniel Kaluuya and Allison Williams spark on screen and the chemistry between them really makes the movie enjoyable. The supporting cast is also great and completes the different typologies present in the movie very well. The characters are one of the strongest points of the film, and that is impressive considering the usual shallow and stupid ones we get in most horror movies.
The action scenes are good, but compared to the rest of the movie they feel just a tiny bit underwhelming. The ending though is good, satisfying and in places, surprising. The story is wrapped up nicely. And speaking about the story, I have to admit that I have rarely seen a better idea put to film. It is unexpected, it is original and it manages to scare you and fascinate you at the same time. I was not expecting such a strong story, and considering it is backed up by an amazing cast, it manages to create an atmospheric horror you will never forget.
All in all, Get Out is by far the best horror movie I saw in the last 10 years and right up there with the best movies of 2017. I strongly recommend this movie, a definite must see for all horror fans and a good bet to start falling in love with the genre if you have avoided it until now. You can enjoy this film even if you hate horror, because it manages to offer you something original and not get bogged down by the clichés that usually plague the genre. An amazing movie, a movie I want to see again and again. You get out only to wish you could jump straight back in…