I enjoyed Keanu and I was intrigued to how the Peele side of Key & Peele would direct horror.
I was not sure how to react to the trailer. It was certainly creepy. But I think the racial themes it was looking to cover made me unsure if this would be done in bad taste.
But with Jordan Peele's work being more of a comedic sense, I had confidence that he could give us something new and interesting to the horror genre.
While some of it might not have felt new, it was certainly interesting, as well as fun and exciting.
When a horror film works for me, it is usually about the lore or rules of the film. If you've seen Scream, then you know what I'm talking about with rules. I was having fun trying to figure things out, as it gives little clues as to what is really happening.
The whole film is certainly told from a perspective that you don't usually see. Especially in horror films.
Daniel Kaluuya was pretty good on the whole. I was amazed to find out that he was actually British, despite having an American accent all the way through. Allison Williams' character evolves nicely and becomes a stand out in several scenes. There were many very creepy performances. Most notably by Bradley Whitford, Caleb Landry Jones, Marcus Henderson, Betty Gabriel and Lakeith Stanfield. Catherine Keener was solid. Her subtle amount of creepiness seem to be nice and refreshing in certain scenes.
I have to finally mention LilRel Howery, who was great as the comedic relief. I can see being in a fair amount of comedy films.
When you read the plot, you can definitely feel that if this goes wrong, the viewing experience could be quite distasteful. But I think the execution of it made it work. The passive aggressive racism used is unsettling and yet it still manages to be entertaining.
The social and racial commentary is done such a satirical way that all audiences can get on board with. For me, that is the integral part of the films success.
While it does have some cliched moments you would associate with horror. It maintains to develop its cool and interesting ideas including the well executed use of racial satire to make this a really good film. While the trailer had a Wicker Man feel of it. It actually ended up being something more out of The Twilight Zone.
Peele and his team have done a great job. He seems to understand really well on how direct genre films. For a directorial debut, that is impressive. The mix horror and comedy works really well. There were minor negatives to speak of the tone not mixing in as well as it did with other scenes. But on the whole, they did something that not can do well with.
As I mentioned before, the performances are great. Kaluuya holds the film well as the lead and I can be in many major projects in the near future. I almost forgot to mention the score. It is particularly spooky and I have already listened to a few pieces from the soundtrack multiple times.
2016 was a pretty good year for horror, and 2017 has already shown horror is alive and still highly creative. I cannot wait to see what Peele directs next.
Rating: 8/10
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