The trailer for Get Out, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, was released Tuesday, and on first look it is not the movie you’d expect from half of Key & Peele. First of all, it’s a horror film. Second, its premise is bonkers. But looking more closely, it might not be that odd: Peele is a long-time fan of the genre, and structurally, horror has more in common with sketch comedy than you might think. Both genres rely on taking a straightforward premise (for instance, “meeting your significant other’s parents,”) and escalating it to more and more ridiculous places (for instance, “your significant other’s parents have a habit of kidnapping and hypnotizing black people”). Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris, and Allison Williams plays the other half of their interracial couple, on a trip to the country to meet her parents, who don’t know he’s black. So far, so much like a Key & Peele sketch. But the trip follows the classic horror movie paradigms: on the way, a dead deer and a racist cop play the role of the harbinger, which Chris naturally ignores, and disaster ensues.
Dead deer or no, things don’t really go off the rails until Kaluuya meets Williams’ parents, played by Bradley Whitford and Catherine Keener. Casting director Terri Taylor should get some kind of special Oscar for this: To play a disorientingly white family, she’s assembled stars from Girls, The West Wing, and the films of Nicole Holofcener. There’s no question Peele has grand ambitions here; when Get Out was announced, he told Variety:
Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way. Get Out takes on the task of exploring race in America, something that hasn’t really been done within the genre since Night of the Living Dead 47 years ago. It’s long overdue.
The trailer doesn’t really give much of an impression of how sharp Get Out will be about race or social issues (outside of the casting), but it definitely looks like it’s going to be over-the-top fun: Keener in particular looks like she was born to play the role of an evil hypnotist. Get Out will be released Feb. 24, but the screening that matters will be the premiere, where, with any luck, Keegan-Michael Key will heckle the film mercilessly.
