After watching Halloween we decided to watch another horror film, a more recent one at that. This had a very different vibe, and it struck me in a different way. This movie was Get Out.
It was very well known when it first came out a few years ago. It is a lot deeper than most horror movies especially slasher films. It touches on modern society in the United States. It can get confusing at times if you don’t pay attention as this movie has many different layers and you can lose track very easily. It has twists and turns you won’t expect, and forces you to the edge of your seat.
Get Out gains its fear factor from how much is unknown. Most of the movie the main character is in the dark and you are not sure what is really going on. You end up being confused and on the edge of your seat trying to expect what is next. It also uses classic ways of scaring the audience. They use music and audio I effects to scare you before you even see what’s going on on screen. If you watch the movie and think about what was said earlier in the movie, that also scares you as it hits you in a much different way after you know whats going on. Some other things that happen are just mess with your mind, involving hypnosis. You see the main character floating in nothingness while staring back through what his eyes are currently seeing and having no control whatsoever over there own physical actions. The movie is very well written with every piece of the movie being involved with the plot.
It was the exact opposite of a slasher film like Halloween, instead of having a unstoppable killer killing people throughout the movie, you have a messed up family that forces the protagonist to try and survive in confusing and awful circumstances. Nobody is killed until the end of the movie, after the protagonist becomes clever, he is able to outsmart the nuts family.
As I said before it comments on societal problems in the US. It touches on racism, Black Lives Matter and police brutality. The location of most of the movie is in a rural area where there is a mainly Caucasian demographic. The protagonist constantly feels out of place throughout the movie because of this especially when he runs into a cop. The family on the other hand try to seem welcoming but at the same time it is obvious they are trying, also to like they are trying to hard. It creates these awkward scenes in the movie.
You can very easily compare this to Frankenstein as it is not a slasher like Halloween and it is more of psychological horror. They both don’t have many deaths, and the whole entire movie doesn’t focus on death. Both movies also look into what is going on the world at the time. Frankenstein looks at humanity and what makes us human. It has a huge focus on wrong right and how that connects to what makes us who we are. Get Out focuses on the norms and impacts of society. It especially focuses on racism, and how it has gotten better but it still isn’t really gone from the world and probably never will be.
The movie is complex and uses many different disguises for different topics outside of the movie. It is one of my favourite horror movies and it is one of the most engaging movies I have ever watched. This movie is a great example of how horror movies can actually be something besides mindless killing and death.