A few things were going to be the finale of my annual Halloween special this year, originally it was the 2018 Halloween but I hated it, and then, while I pondered what my seventh review would be, it was Doom 3. But while I considered reviewing the film Oculus, a friend of mine came round and noticed Get Out on my Blu Ray shelf, the film that was hailed as a masterpiece of horror and social commentary for its elegant tackling of Racism in modern America, you may forgive me for being sceptical of that claim, but we watched it, and now I'm singing a slightly different tune. In fact, there's so much to say about Get Out that I don't think a standard review will cut it, so I'm resurrecting the Redux, something I should never have needed to do, since I still haven't done a Redux on Coraline, Ghost in the Shell, Ghostbusters and Godzilla, again. But when it comes to Get Out, the drive is most certainly there now. I will be going into spoilers in this review so if you want the spoiler free version; Get Out's good, watch it, but going forward I'm going into some details that you probably shouldn't know for a first viewing, you've been warned.
Here's what you need to know; Chris doesn't know just what to expect when he finally meets his white girlfriend's super liberal parents, but upon arriving at their secluded lake side estate, they seem very friendly and accommodating, perhaps overly so. But Chris is no fool, something very twisted is bubbling just beneath the surface of this family and he knows it, but he has no idea just how twisted and disturbing the truth really is, a nightmarish conspiracy that threatens not to take his life, but something far worse.
Get Out's opening scene is pretty standard for a horror movie, a guy is walking alone at night in a quiet suburb when he becomes the target of a masked fiend that attacks him and takes him away. A detail that's only important because the film makes it important is that this guy who is attacked is black, get used to reading that word today, because it'll come up a lot, and white, and progressive. Something I decided to take a second look at by about my three thousandth word into this review was the song that plays over this film's opening titles, which I didn't pay any attention to until Chris started calling people brother later in the film. What I found after not really a lot of digging is that the song is saying something, that the lyrics are actually in Swahili and translate to "Brother, listen to (not entirely sure what Wahenga translates to), run, run away, save yourself." I suppose what this means needs no explanation, in the context of the twist, the "save yourself" part in particular seems incredibly ominous and creepy. I've also seen some translations saying that Wahenga means ancestors, though I don't know for sure, but let's go with that because if that is what it means, the song's message to run becomes even more unsettling. When accompanied with brother, the song becomes not just very, very subtle foreshadowing, but a warning to Chris in particular, a warning from his 'ancestors;' those who came before, or more precisely, those before him that are now trapped in the hell that awaits him if he doesn't 'save himself.' This obviously also relates to the film's title, "Get Out," which is in refence to a line spoken by one of the funny acting black people when he runs at Chris screaming at him to "Get Out," in the context of the twist, this action makes sense, but in the context of this song, again assuming that Wehenga means ancestor, Logan then becomes an ancestor. The word ancestor could also very easily be an allusion to American slavery, which is still a very hot topic in America despite being abolished one hundred and fifty years ago. This is, understandably, because of the deep scars Slavery and the Civil War left in American society, scars that are the root the black victimhood narrative and the progressive Americans' white guilt, which is something I'll explain later.
We are then introduced to our guy; Chris, the photographer with the pretty girlfriend, and it's here that we go into spoilers, it's also here that the film starts laying on its message, and laying it on thick, but in a surprising twist, the message isn't meaningless or ham-fisted, rather it's fascinating. Chris is nervous to meet Rose's parents, but she assures him that they're liberal and progressive and that they won't care that he's black, which, if we know anything at all, it's that them being progressive means they will only care that he's black, but we're already jumping the gun. But where things get real juicy in the next scene, where they hit a deer and call the police. This scene is genius because of its incredible subtlety, as on the surface it looks like the cop is just being a racist, but I'm not sure if it's necessarily him that's the racist in this scene. The cop asks for Chris' ID, even though he wasn't driving the car when they hit the deer, and at first glance, that does seem questionable, but the eye opener is Rose's immediate judgement of the cop's intentions, without thought or hesitation Rose immediately jumps to race. This really could be seen either way; the cop could be racist for asking for Chris's ID even though he wasn't driving, but Rose could also be racist for assuming that the cop was only on Chris because he's black. For a film that supposedly tackles Racism in America, this is a stunning and refreshing amount of nuance, and the film really does get better from here. Something that becomes very apparent when Chris arrives at the house is the off vibe of the family and the house itself, first with the strange acting groundskeeper and housekeeper who are both black, then with the parents going full speed on the virtue signalling, saying shit like "such a privilege to experience another person's culture, " and Obama was "the best president in my lifetime."
The funny thing about virtue signalling is that it always ends up looking bad, it speaks to a desire to show off how virtuous, how good you are, and it always comes out looking contrived and conspicuous, hence the name, you are signalling your virtue, making it known how good you are. The problem with doing this is that when it's over done, which it always is, it looks suspicious, like you're signalling your virtue to hide something that isn't virtuous, moreover it reflects a desire to be politically correct, a well-meaning soft bigotry that mandates people control their own language and behaviour around people of an underprivileged group so as to be accommodating and not offensive. This action comes directly from the simple detail that Chris is black, because like I said before, if they're progressive, which they very much act to be, they are obsessed with race. We see this soft racism in many scenes of this film's first hour, for example Jeremy implying that black people have some kind of genetic advantage and asking Chris if he's ever been in street fights, one could be interpreted as either racist or a harmless question, while the other is very unambiguously racially charged, yet both are passed off as harmless. Again, this speaks to a progressive obsession with race, in addition to Jeremy demonstrating a collectivist mentality, the notion that black people "could be beasts" thanks to their genetic makeup. And once again we have Rose immediately assuming that it's about Chris being black, and though this time she's right, it still reflects her own obsession with race. She also asks Chris why he's so calm, which could be interpreted as a progressive's emotional investment in the ideology; she has perceived racism and is angered by it yet is confused that the black guy is so chill, reflecting some sort of notion that Chris should feel a certain way because of his skin colour, another example of soft bigotry and collectivism. Something I literally just thought of while writing this too was Jeremy's attempt to put Chris in a headlock, in hindsight this is foreshadowing of the film's reveal, something we should have already noticed as in the first scene, the masked fiend subdues the black guy with a headlock, now thinking about it, it's almost certain that had Missy not stopped him, Jeremy would have subdued Chris then and there at the dinner table, that there is some brilliant foreshadowing.
Taking a break from the film's subtle commentary on racism for just a moment, one thing I'm not a huge fan of in Get Out is it's use of jumpscare cues in the spooky scenes, I said the same of Sinister but this one feels even more confusing as we get a cue when Georgina, the house's weird housekeeper, is seen mindlessly gawking at herself in the window, one that exists purely to make the audience jump, while not adding to the suspense in any meaningful way, the Groundskeeper running at Chris being accompanied by music makes sense, the jumpscare cue in the scene makes no sense. What else makes no sense to me is that Get Out falls back on these horror tactics in the first place, since its most effective horror is entirely psychological, making a jumpscare feel out of place. Get Out's greatest strength, aside from the commentary, is in its mystery; the intrigue and dread surrounding the progressive family and their weirdo black servants, an intrigue that isn't wasted in the reveal, its horror is effective without conventional and tired horror tropes, making them feel like they don't belong. Getting back to the mystery, it is now in the film that we are introduced to the Sunken Place, which, even if you take out the social commentary, would still make Get Out a fascinating and creepy film. The Sunken Place is a terrifying concept; a void, dark and empty, in which exists nothing but consciousness, a mind stripped of all its power and agency. If you've ever seen a short film called Alma, this might sound familiar to you, it's a concept that is deeply disturbing, completely losing control of your own existence, literally being powerless to even so much as move, becoming nothing more than a passive observer with no individual agency. This raises all sorts of questions in the context of the reveal, so we'll be coming back to the Sunken Place soon enough, but like I said before, even if you ignore the racial commentary, the Sunken Place is a gold mine of intrigue and horror.
Getting back to the film's mystery, we get another fascinating piece of foreshadowing, that being the Groundskeeper using the word "doggone." To most people, that'd be a funny word for anyone to say, in fact I'm sure some people don't even know what it means, but the interesting thing about the word is its use over time; doggone was a much more common word around the middle of the twentieth century, 1940'-50's, so while it is weird for a black guy who looks in his thirties to use it, in the context of the twist, it makes a creepy amount of sense, and the same thing is observable in Georgina when she says "cellular phone," and doesn't understand what snitch means, a word that only started to become common in the 2000's. So far, Get Out has demonstrated not only an admirable amount of subtlety and nuance in its social commentary, but an outstanding grasp on foreshadowing. And back we go screaming into the social commentary with a liberal (pun intended) helping of identity politics, as Chris expresses discomfort at the number of white people on the estate. This, kind of like the racist cop from earlier, can be interpreted in a fuck ton of ways, so let's get stuck in. This could suggest a victim mentality in Chris, one that would reflect the progressive narrative of discrimination and racism in America, with the media and activist groups like BLM hollering about the oppression of black Americans at the hands of 'the man.' Maybe Chris is nervous because of this narrative, a fear that being surrounded by so many white people puts him in some kind of danger, which would mean that Chris, just like Rose and all the other white people in the film, is a soft bigot. Not far from that is that they all specifically seem to be progressive and uber tolerant, again, conspicuously so which infers an inherent obsession with race, one that makes Chris nervous because to them, he's not just a person, he's specifically a black man, and to them, that has all kinds of connotations, chief among them being his status as a victim.
But how do we know that they're all progressive, simple, from all the virtue signalling and soft bigotry on display; like the guy who loves Tiger Woods, or the woman asking if it's true that black guys have bigger dicks, and the guy who asks if being "African American" is an advantage or a disadvantage, a use of politically correct language that reflects a collectivist mentality and a belief in the victim narrative. And then there's the guy that says, "Black is in fashion," which is a real humdinger of a statement. The statement has many ways of looking at it, the first that came to my mind was, and I bet you'd never have guessed, the progressive obsession with race; the unintentional othering of black people because of the narrative that they're oppressed and are therefore in need of special treatment and protection, something the Art dealer calls out quite elegantly when he says that they're well-meaning but don't understand the real world, a very unambiguous calling out of the elitist left wing bubble that all these rich, white, elderly couples are very clearly a part of. All apart from the one Asian guy, who could possibly be a reminder that this kind of soft bigotry isn't exclusively the domain of white people, a subtle critique of collectivism. The statement, "Black is in fashion," also comes to have a much more literal interpretation in the context of the twist, the idea of it being a fashion, something for people to wear, and a need to take another person or people's identity in place of your own or your own lack of, this will become important when we go back to the Sunken Place. The mask slips at this point, like we didn't already know, we now most certainly know of the family's sinister intentions, as they play 'bingo' while secretly bidding in an auction, bidding on Chris. And it's also here that the film's social commentary eases up for a little while. Instead of that however, we get Dean talking cryptically about gods. I went back to take more notes after thinking a bit more on this scene at work, and I wrote down what it was that he said. he first asks "what is your purpose, Chris," clearly a question as to the value of his own identity; how important is Chris as an individual. But it's his next line that's really interesting, "but we are divine, we are the gods trapped in cocoons."
Just what does he mean by Gods in Cocoons, and just who does he mean. Ignoring the identity politics of the film for one interpretation, he means that humans are gods but we are restricted from reaching our full potential, the cocoon being mortality and the physical limitations of the human body. Therein lies a contradiction however, if we are gods trapped by human life spans, it would suggest that we are all gods, making their solution unjust, like it already wasn't, as it would rob another person of his godhood, to entrap him even more in the cocoon of mortality. Unless he doesn't think that we're all gods, that some people are more important than others, which is where the identity politics comes up again. A fundamental flaw in collectivism, as I've said numerous times on this blog, is that it ignores individuality, to a collectivist, I for example would not simply be a person, I'd specifically be a white male, Chris isn't a person, he's a black male, his and my individuality is less important than the demographics we're a part of. Ignoring individuality dehumanises the individual, Chris ceases to be a person, he is now vessel, a literal vessel as we'll very soon get to, but also a figurative vessel, a piece of meat to carry the progressive narrative. And now for the biggie, Dean's solution to death, the big twist that you can't go back from once you know it; the family has been kidnapping Black people and transplanting the brains of their family and friends into their bodies, allowing them to live longer and to live someone else's life at the expense of the host, who becomes trapped in the Sunken Place, unable to control their own body. Good luck not having nightmares about that concept; again ignoring identity politics, this is a disturbing idea; another person taking away your personhood and walking around in your skin while you watch, powerless to stop it. This raises all sorts of questions about individuality and agency, two things that simply don't exist after most of you is cut out and replaced by someone else, it relates back to Dean's question of Chris' purpose, and is a physical manifestation of collectivism ignoring the individual, as we see Rose's trophy wall in one scene, where she hangs pictures of all the people she's helped to victimise, all of whom are meaningless, their identities as individuals snuffed out.
Add onto this the identity politics angle now, all of the victims are black, Rose's trophy wall are all pictures of black people, now remember the guy who said that "Black is in fashion," this is that literal interpretation I was on about, literally wearing a person's skin, now this isn't simply taking another person's body, it's also taking another person's identity, or in this case, their group identity; Black is in fashion after all. This can be related to the progressive concept of diversity, which, as I've also said before, doesn't actually mean diversity, just as the feminist definition of misogyny isn't actually what the word means, to a progressive, diversity means fewer white people. Part of this push for diversity, a push for more non-white people, is progressive white guilt; self-hatred formed from being told that you are bad because of your race, and because of that race's history. To a progressive, white people are bad, they conquered the world and enslaved all the innocent brown people, and white people alive today are guilty of that apparent evil, never mind all the good things white people did for history, such as the British hunting down and capturing slave ships to stamp out slavery, or all the white Americans that died in the Civil War, or more recently, taking down the Nazis and saving the world from fascism and tyranny. As usual, there is a narrative and evidence that contradicts that narrative can just be swept under the rug, white people are all evil and have been for all history, never mind the millions upon millions upon millions of good ones. This is the root of white guilt, similar to the Germans feeling guilty for the wrongdoing of their ancestors, to American white progressives, all white people are descended from slave owners, and they're all despicable racists, no matter how much they prostrate, no matter how good an ally to the cause they are, if they have white skin, they have original sin. In this context, "Black is in fashion," is an attempt to shed that original sin, to lose the white guilt by losing the white skin and replacing it with innocent and pure black skin. Another part of this is collectivism, just as white people are collectively evil, even the good ones, black people are collectively pure, even the bad ones, but collectivism doesn't consider the value of the individual as much as it values their characterises, again, Chris isn't a person, he's a black man, and that matters more to them than his humanity, making his humanity disposable in the pursuit of moral purity and justice.
This is the greatest failing of the progressives, for all their talk of caring about black people or women of gays, they don't actually care about the individuals that make up that group, they care about a group identity, because just as being white means you're evil, being a woman or being gay or being black also means you are a certain way, rather, that you think a certain way. This is why people who speak out against groupthink are so hated, they should stay in the pen with everyone else, they shouldn't think for themselves because to do that is to see the ugly, racist, sexist truth of progressivism. Upon this very intriguing, creepy and provocative reveal, the social commentary of the film is pretty much done, now all that remains is the exciting and incredibly satisfying finale as Chris murders the family and escapes. What makes this sequence so satisfying is your hatred of the family, a hatred not spawned from a blatant and unapologetic racism, but through the film's study into the soft bigotry of the progressive left, though their subtle dehumanising of people for the supposed benefit of humanity and at the expense of their victims, they are monsters. Theirs and particularly Rose's complete betrayal of Chris' trust and their monstrous actions towards him and all their previous victims makes Chris' escape an exhilarating sequence in the film. But just before we get to the end, the film throws in two more fantastic little sprinkles of intrigue; earlier in the film, Chris takes a picture of one of their victims, causing him to become hysterical, we now know that the host consciousness still exists in the vessel after the transplantation, so Chris takes a photo of the Groundskeeper after he tackles him, this time intentionally trying to wake up the host consciousness. He is successful, and the host tricks Rose into giving him the rifle at which point he shoots her, then, with a single tear rolling down his face, he cocks the rifle and blows his own brains out. This is a manifestation of the mental trauma the Sunken Place presses on the host; having no control or agency for so long, trapped in a empty, lifeless limbo within your own head, it makes sense for Logan to become hysterical as the host consciousness regains control after however long in the dark, the Groundskeeper shooting himself is a clear indication that, at least to him, death is better than the life the family left him with, a lifetime in the Sunken Place.
And in a final sting to the audience, when the police show up, Rose pleads for help, a commentary on the victim narrative, and an implication that the people using it aren't necessarily victims or using it for noble reasons. Rose is a manipulative predator playing the victim, just as some people in the real world who play the victim are trying to play the system, using their group identity as leverage. It doesn't work as it turns out to be the best comedy relief character in any horror film ever, who rescues Chris, leaving Rose to bleed to death in the street. Rose is a very interesting and creepy character in this film, as she has been manipulating people for years, recruiting them into the family's operation through deception. As I said before, she is a manipulative predator, which represents the untrustworthiness of the ally. This is something that's very observable in male feminists, but can be seen in all groups and agendas across the political spectrum, people who 'help' the cause by playing along, all the while hiding their true intentions; the stereotype of male feminists being sexual predators exists for a reason, and here, that same concept applies to the white ally of our black hero, playing along to gain the trust of and eventually capture her latest victim. After all is revealed, she is shown to be completely emotionally dethatched from her actions, image searching for a fresh target in front of a trophy wall of her previous victims, this in contrast to her warmth and affections towards Chris before, reflecting the emotional hollowness of the ally, playing along with no real investment in the cause outside of their own intentions with it.
Sikiliza Kwa Wahenga
I probably haven't exhausted all that I can squeeze from this film here, but this is the finale to my Halloween special as well as an analysis, meaning that I have a deadline to get it done, which is about three hours away as of writing this sentence. Get Out is a film I admittedly knew little about going in, outside of its supposedly brilliant tackling of racism. I was apprehensive that I'd be watching an awkward progressive preachathon, but I was wrong, as not only did the film steer well clear of preaching, but it was in fact a tackling of the progressive left itself in a twist I genuinely wasn't expecting, and one that I found absolutely fascinating. Get Out serves as both a creepy and gripping mystery and a unique and equally gripping commentary on the soft bigotry of the left, and far from feeling out of place, the film's message is woven so seamlessly into the film that it becomes, for me at least, its greatest strength. I didn't know what I'd think of Get Out when I started watching it, but by the end of my second viewing, still scribbling frantically into my notebook, it occurred to me that Get Out isn't just a film I like, it's a film I love, and it's one that I'll very happily watch again. I was nervous as to how I'd recommend this film given its touchy nature, but you know what, fuck it, Get Out is an absolute must watch.
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