It came as a surprise when it was announced a couple years ago that comedian Jordan Peele would be making his feature directorial debut with the horror movie GET OUT, as you would usually assume that a comedian would want to direct comedies. Our own Eric Walkuski was recently able to sit down for an interview with Peele, and during the conversation it became clear why he chose horror as the genre for his first movie: this is what he's passionate about, and now that he has broken into horror it sounds like we can expect him to be a regular presence in the genre.
The full interview with Peele will go live next week, but in the meantime here are some choice quotes.
When asked where the inspiration for the story of GET OUT came from, Peele answered:
I feel like all the great horror movies have an underlying real life horror that they are metaphors for. Some do it in more subtle ways or allegorical ways. [Get Out] is really in the tradition of The Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby, which are movies about gender, about men making decisions for women behind their backs. I very much patterned this movie after those; taking a cue from those movies because they're first and foremost entertaining popcorn flicks with twists and turns. Then you sort of think about them afterward and I think you realize there's a deeper, real-life horror at play underneath.
On his plans to continue working in horror, he had this to say:
I've been developing several different movies in the category I call 'the social thriller.' They all bite off of a different human demon. Get Out is about several things but obviously it's about race, the next one will be about something else.
So Peele plans to make more movies in the genre, a genre which is packed with sequels, and there is a chance that he could eventually make a sequel of his own. When asked if he would be interested in making a sequel to GET OUT, he said:
It's a possibility, there are several directions that could go. To be quite honest, artistically, I'm focused on many other ideas, so it's not a priority for me… I'd be prepared to try to figure it out. I think there are a lot of different ways to do it. I'd be thrilled if Hollywood was interested in paying me a lot of money to develop it.
GET OUT will be released into theatres on February 24th. I was interested in seeing the film before, but now that I know how Peele feels about horror I'm even more interested in checking it out.
Our own Chris Bumbray got to see GET OUT last month and gave it an 8/10 review.