Get Out director Jordan Peele wants to change people’s minds with horror movies – The Verge

On February 24th, Jordan Peeles Get Out debuted in theaters with an impressive $30 million box office take, making it one of the early hits of 2017. A terrifying thriller shot through with razor-sharp social satire about the state of race in the United States, its the directorial debut for the actor-turned-filmmaker, who up until now has been best known as half the duo behind the sketch comedy series Key & Peele. For five seasons, that show used satire to examine social issues, especially black culture, so it shouldnt come as a complete surprise that Peele an ardent horror fan was able to do the same within a different genre. I jumped on the phone with Peele to talk about the origins of Get Out, his favorite horror influences, and how movies may be our best weapon for creating change where its needed most.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Youre juggling a lot of genre conventions here horror movies, comedy, social satire but the film always feels cohesive. Where did this idea originally come from, and how long did it take you to get to the script you shot?

There was this post-racial lie going on.

I developed it over the last eight years, really. The original story genesis was, I wanted to make a horror movie, and I first zoned in on this idea that I wanted to make a movie about the social fear and anxiety we all have about being the outsider in any group. Very quickly I realized this could be a racial movie. So race wasn't the initial spark, but I realized it could [be a focal point], and that was where my instinct was coming from.

As we got into the initial years of the Obama administration, it became more clear than ever to me that race was a conversation people were increasingly uncomfortable having. There was this post-racial lie going on. So this movie, the purpose of it became to represent the black experience, but also just [represent] race in the horror-movie genre and in the public conversation, in a way that I felt was taboo.

You tackle these issues so boldly, it seems like youd scare off a lot of studios. But from what Ive read, production companies QC Entertainment and Blumhouse Productions got on board quickly.

I had done about five years of coming up with the outline before I even brought it up to anybody. I had a very tight and intricate idea. And in retrospect, I think obviously what I saw as the big risk, they saw as the right risk with the subject matter. But for the most part, the construction of the story was in place. I think what people are really responding to is the story itself, and the fact that it defies the uncomfortableness of the subject matter.

You use that discomfort to your advantage. The microaggressions your protagonist faces are painful, even when you play it as comedy. But as a storyteller trying to get under peoples skin, were you worried how those interactions would play differently to different audiences, or people of different political persuasions?

It seems to be universal. I didn't have too much of a fear [of how it would play]. One of the things that is very liberating about horror is that it's a genre made of classics that push the boundaries of what you're allowed to talk about and what you're allowed to do. You take the classic scene from The Exorcist. What they had Regan do in that movie was so over the top, so really unacceptable. That helped it be, for a lot of people, the greatest horror movie of all time. I think one of the things attractive about [the genre] is, you can't really hate on a horror movie for crossing the line of good taste. It's almost part of the point.

You can't hate on a horror movie for crossing the line of good taste.

So I didn't have fear. I had a lot of doubt about whether the movie would get made, because I knew people could bristle at the whole idea of it. But I didn't have doubt that people coming to see a horror movie would get it.

Get Out is your directing debut, but its incredibly confident, particularly visually. I know youre a big horror fan, and Rosemarys Baby and The Stepford Wives were references. Did you have other films as visual touchstones?

The other movies that were visually relevant for this were The Shining, the way that they used the location of the Overlook as kind of the monster, sort of idyllic and creepy. Halloween, especially in the opening scene, pulling the horror out from suburbia. Silence of the Lambs for the hypnosis scene. I talked about [Robert] Altman a lot, because I wanted it feeling very natural, and the conversations feeling very natural, and I love wide shots. I talked about Misery a good amount. Much like The Shining, it takes place in an isolated and beautiful location. Those are mainly the ones.

Given the political climate, entertainment that helps foster political discussion and empathy is more important than ever. With this movie, were you intentionally trying to tackle the power of a story to change minds?

When you just tell people to think, people tend to get defensive.

One hundred percent. I had a front-row seat, obviously, in Key & Peele, realizing the power of sketch to help start and inform conversation. I'm a true believer in story. I think when you just tell people to think, people tend to get resistant and defensive, and feel like you're accusing them of not thinking.

But when you tell a story, and you draw them in through allowing them to see through the eyes of a different person, and when you can affect their feelings and emotions whether it's making them laugh, or making them scared, or making them scream, or making them cheer then you have them on a starting point, already, to think about why they had those visceral reactions. The way I look at it is, when you allow people to submerge themselves into a story, they will react by thinking through what it's about. That's just so much more fun and effective, I think, than a lecture.

Can we expect more of these kinds of films from you? What are you working on next?

I love horror. I love thrillers. I love these new social thrillers. There's several other ideas that have been germinating for the past eight years, and I'd like to do all of them. As far as I'm concerned, my next decade or so along with helping other untapped artists, or untapped identities, find their own platforms as a producer I want to write and direct these four other social thrillers.

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Get Out director Jordan Peele wants to change people's minds with horror movies - The Verge