‘Get Out’ is creepy where it counts

In 2017’s “Get Out,” the question is not “Guess who’s coming to dinner?” but “Is he leaving alive?”

There is such a deceptive simplicity to first-time director Jordan Peele’s horror film that one could enjoy it just as a riveting horror film of a young man trapped and in full-on survival mode.

But the fact that that the young Chris (played by the exceptional Daniel Kaluuya) is a black man invited to spend the weekend with his girlfriend and her tundra-white family allows Peele to ratchet up the overall tone and subvert some of the more common horror tropes to take on a more topical accent.

For example, “Get Out” opens with a young man walking through a well-lit suburban street that could easily pass for modern-day Haddonfield, home to well-known cinematic stalker Michael Meyers of the “Halloween” films. But because of his skin color, there’s more than just a knife-wielding serial killer that has him looking over his shoulder.

We see the man minding his own business, then suddenly assaulted and tossed in the back of a white Porsche while the well-manicured community around remains deathly silent.

Flash ahead and we meet Chris reluctantly packing for his trip with his lovely girlfriend Rose (played by Allison Williams). He arrives at the posh, secluded estate and is immediately embraced by the liberal family, who seem to go out of their way to awkwardly try to connect with Chris (“I would have voted Obama for a third term, if I could,” enthuses dad). The Armitage family consists of neurosurgeon dad Dean (played by Bradley Whitford), hypnotherapist mom Missy (played by Catherine Keener) and her med student brother (played by Caleb Landry Jones).

And as accepting as they all seem to be of Chris, the estate appears somehow “off.” For example, the family has a black live-in housekeeper and groundskeeper who appear almost robotically happy and act as though they have not escaped the ‘50s. Also, a late-night run-in with Missy allowed Chris to be hypnotized, and he now thinks he is susceptible to disturbing visions. Things get stranger when the annual “family gathering” takes place, an event that was seemingly sprung on the young visiting couple, but promises to blanket the grounds like a WASPy winter wonderland. Chris occasionally phones his friend back home, a straight-talking TSA agent (played by Lil Rel Howrey), who warned Chris about taking the trip in the first place. As Chris becomes increasingly suspicious, the Armitage family seems to have an explanation for everything and assures their guest he’s merely being paranoid.

It’s this kind of societal fear that makes “Get Out” so much more than just an engaging thriller. Peele, one half of the comedic duo that graced us with the successful sketch show “Key & Peele,” does not hold back in satirizing our supposed “post-racial” modern climate (there’s an all-too-eerie Trayvon Martin vibe in the opening sequence that was certainly no accident).

“Get Out” is not only substantially creepy where it counts, it also simmers with a style and anger that give us so much more to inhale throughout. It’s a bold debut that is as assured and biting as the best of his television work, and hopefully just the beginning of the next chapter in Peele’s career.