Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Off-season horror review, anyone?

Has anyone seen -- and planning on reviewing -- Get Out? It seems my corner of the internet, consisting of NPR and Slate articles, has all but exploded with analyses of the film since it was released back in February.

Get Out seems an invaluable piece of pop culture criticism of the hero-villian dichotomy, not exclusive to the horror movie genre. Jordan Peele of Comedy Central's "Key and Peele" is the brain-child behind the writing and directing of this unique feature. He admittedly labels his film being more of a "psychological thriller" than straight up horror, but conceding with this New Yorker article that the African-American experience can be "a horrific one." David Edelstein's NPR review highlights an awkward first meeting between protagonist Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) and girlfriend Rose's (Allison Williams) parents. Aisha Harris' Slate article discusses the relevance of Get Out to the race discussion [that isn't happening on a national scale in my opinion], while also acknowledging the horror film's influences from Rosemary's Baby and The Stepford Wives.

I normally avoid reading too many reviews that "unpack" a film's nuances and relevance if I really want to see it, but I broke that rule namely because newborn babies are a 24-hour job and there seemed to be so many articles out there eager to jump on the popularity of Get Out, which reached #1 on its opening weekend.

As a Horrorthon reviewer, I have always tried looking for something more in my movie reviews, whether it is a critique on feminism through my review of Martyrs or the prison industrial complex with The Human Centipede 3: Final Sequence (har, har). I'm looking forward to October for reviewing Get Out and others, for whatever social commentary they might offer (or not).

3 comments:

Octopunk said...

Okay super psyched that you threw up the review, but I haven't seen this flick yet so I don't want to read it. Anyone else?

AC said...

Haven't seen it yet, definitely want to!!

Catfreeek said...

I saw this and liked it. Also the new Annabelle film has some game, they went old school horror and it works.

Malevolent

 2018  ***1/2 It's 1986 for some reason, and a team of paranormal investigators are making a big name for themselves all over Scotland. ...