Get Out is a whip-smart and topical horror film that follows Chris, played by Daniel Kaluuya, as he travels with his girlfriend Rose, played by Allison Williams, to spend a weekend at her wealthy parents’ isolated estate. At first, the visit is full of the predictably awkward but seemingly harmless, with overly friendly behavior and strange remarks from the family. As the weekend goes on, Chris notices increasingly unsettling and passive-aggressive behavior from other house guests . The house is staffed by oddly stiff and almost uncanny Black people, the only other Black people Chris sees. He begins to sense that something is deeply wrong beneath the family’s thin patina of progressive values.

I have heard it asserted that the best horror films take a familiar location and amplify what already makes that place unsettling. Halloween, for instance, is set in the suburbs, where privacy is supposed to mean safety, yet Michael is allowed to operate unchecked because of that same privacy. The assumed safety of white wealth, as a Black man, can be unsettling, especially if you are the only Black person there. Get Out takes all of the microaggressive attempts to relate and the implied isolation and brings those elements forward. Honestly, one of the scariest moments of the film is at the very beginning when, during a police stop, the officer asks for ID and Rose protests. I can tell you, as a Black man in that situation, civil liberties are the least of my worries; survival is. Rose’s lack of understanding in that moment is as scary as the officer. Her protest, no matter how well-meaning, can get Chris hurt or worse, killed.

Daniel Kaluuya plays Chris as intentionally reserved, not just uncomfortable about meeting his girlfriend’s parents but uncomfortable in the isolation and tension created by comments about his body and comparisons to other Black people. His heightened awareness comes across as polite reserve as he is grilled by her family. He disarms them with polite laughs and smiles and uses social grace to move past the awkwardness before anything can escalate. Allison Williams, of Girls fame and the daughter of Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, does a great job as well. She is recognizable as the “well-meaning ally” who may support you but never does the emotional work of empathy. She takes umbrage at what she hears her family’s guests say, but also at her parents’ awkwardness. Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford are both great as Rose’s parents. Her brother, played by Caleb Landry Jones, is about as unsettling a character as one can be without any supernatural abilities. He really stood out to me as both recognizable and eerie.

Much has been made of this being Jordan Peele’s first movie. Jordan Peele was great on Mad TV, and he and Keegan-Michael Key created one of the best shows on Comedy Central. I would never have guessed that a comedian, even one as talented as Jordan Peele, would have such an amazing directorial debut. There is a school of thought that comedians are uniquely good at horror because both genres rely on understanding timing, tension, and what the audience is thinking. If Jordan had made a merely good film, I would have been satisfied, but this movie is excellent. I hope he continues to make movies and grows as a director.

Get Out has left its residue on the culture and is still among the smartest and best horror films of the past twenty years.