Get Out

Coming up to Halloween, we invited our VIFF+ Premium members to nominate the scariest movies they have ever seen — and they’re playing in the Lochmaddy Studio all this week.

Guess who’s coming to dinner? When Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) accompanies girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) for a weekend in the country with her folks he’s a little nervous about how he will be received. She hasn’t told them he’s Black, and the only African Americans in this neck of the woods are servants. Although he’s greeted warmly, as the visit unfolds he becomes increasingly concerned, even paranoid, about what they have in mind for him…

Turning white middle class fears on their head, this simple, brilliantly satiric horror film was an auspicious feature film debut from writer-director Jordan Peele, who has since given us Us and Nope — bigger, more ambitious movies, but neither quite as locked in on the zeitgeist as this one.

VIFF+ Premium member Emily Wu nominated this one:

“It’s widely regarded as a modern horror masterpiece that blends psychological terror with social commentary,” she writes. “Get Out builds tension through unsettling situations, eerie behaviour, and a growing sense that something is deeply wrong. Daniel Kuluya’s lead performance anchors the fear, making Chris’s vulnerability and desperation feel authentic and deeply affecting. I was genuinely disturbed after watching Get Out, not just in the moment but for days afterward. The film’s slow-burn unease and the way it twists everyday interactions into something sinister left me second-guessing situations long after the credits rolled. It doesn’t just scare you while you’re watching it, it changes how you see the world afterward.”

Content Considerations: Racist content

Peele’s perfectly tuned cast and deft camera work unleash his uproarious humor along with his political fury; with his first film, he’s already an American Buñuel.

Richard Brody, New Yorker

Get Out is searing satire, with scary/comic riffs on slavery and assimilation, but it’s also a smashing crowd-pleaser of a horror film …

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice

The screenplay is a masterpiece of subversion, laced with race-based fears and notions of stereotype that are played for laughs, but hit home.

Liz Braun, Toronto Sun