Starring Daniel Kaluuya, Alison Williams, Christine Keener, Bradley Whitford

Directed by Jordan Peele

Blumhouse, out now

Jordan Peele’s low budget comedy horror social commentary thriller leaps effortlessly between genres, and while it might defy easy categorisation, it impresses on every level.

On paper, Get Out looks like any number of generic horror movies from the Blumhouse stable – no big stars, simple premise, the anticipation of a number of jump scares – but very soon it’s clear that there’s far more depth to this movie. Daniel Kaluuya’s photographer has been with his girlfriend (an excellent Allison Williams) for five months, meaning that it’s time to meet the parents. He’s concerned that she hasn’t told them that he’s black (and also her first black boyfriend) but she reassures him that her folks are so liberal that they would have voted in Obama for a third term.

And so it is that mother Christine Keener and father Bradley Whitford (psychiatrist and neurosurgeon respectively) try very hard to make their guest welcome, while dropping some awkward and cringeworthy asides. When the drunken brother arrives it all becomes very tense, as we move from Meet the Fockers to Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. From this point on, the sense of dread and unease never lets up. Why do the hired help act as if they have been brainwashed and just who are these visitors to the house who are making it their business to know everything about the guest?

To say any more would spoil the surprises, and you really want to unravel the mystery yourself. Again, to indicate what territory the movie eventually strays into would be spoilerific, though The Stepford Wives and ’70s paranoia thrillers is a fairly safe benchmark that’s already evident from the trailer. As with most movies that rely on a grand reveal there’s inevitably a sense of ‘ok, I get it, so what happens now?’ leading to a very OTT third act. But by this time you’re fully invested in the lead as he fights to survive.

The only weak point for me was LilRel Howery’s transport cop. He’s used as comic relief to break the tension and thankfully spends most of the time at the end of a phone, but it’s a broad performance and a little does go a long way.

Verdict: Tense, inventive, scary and with something to say, this unexpected gem shows that budget is no measure of quality. It’s all about the storytelling, and this is a classic fable that we’d like to think exists in a parallel universe, while acknowledging there’s an awful lot of verisimilitude. 9/10

Nick Joy