Jordan Peele: A modern day Auteur.

When the film Get Out made it's debut in early 2017 fans were in for a mind warping treat. Jordan Peele, a renowned comedian of the modern day was gracing audiences with a horror film, something very far removed from the comedy for which he was known. Get Out hit theaters in February of 2017 and it was a psychological thrill ride of likes that no one had ever seen before and for that we give thanks to Jordan Peele, a modern day auteur.

An auteur is someone who has personal influence and artistic control over their filmmaking in a way that helps to shape has their own distinctive style. In five years since the release of Get Out, Jordan Peele has become one of the entertainment industry's biggest and most sought after filmmakers, especially when it comes to horror. What makes Jordan Peele so appealing to critics and audiences alike is his social commentative style of horror crafting. The horror in a Jordan Peele film is not founded on jump scares or ghouls of the night, but on the very real world issues we live with as people and how our human nature dwells in the midst of these issues. Peele has displayed how magnetic this socially conscious horror is with all three of his major releases to date: Get Out, Us, and Candyman.

Get Out chronicles the story of a young Black male who goes to visit the family of his White girlfriend only to find he has been brought to this family for a more sinister and inhumane reason. What makes this film such a skin crawler is not the revelation of why the main character has been sought after in the climax, but all the tension leading up to the climax measured in how race relations are explored when all the White characters interact with our protagonist in the most awkward yet ominous of ways with a fondness for his Blackness. Get Out really said a lot about apathy in our human nature, which is displayed in how we objectify someone solely for their racial stereotypes that we fetishize and how our naivete often blinds us to the hidden horrors by which we are surrounded. With this film Jordan Peele also made a bold statement about how sometimes the person you think is your friend, especially on a social level, can really just be a wolf in sheep's clothing and that not all villains come with horns and growls, but also smiles and hugs. I remember seeing Get Out in theaters and and being blown away at how much it kept me and the rest of that packed screening room on edge. I also thought it was funny how many interracial couples showed up to the theater to watch the film, it really made the commentary all the more real and entertaining. It was as if the audience appreciated the meta humor that poked fun at the real world stereotypes they probably dealt with in their own relationships.

With Us we visit a family on a vacation who runs into murderous clones of themselves, as does the rest of the world. With the world being attacked by mirror images of themselves, we as the audiences come to find that the message of the film is we are our worst enemy. As scary as it is to watch someone being terrorized by a force beyond the self, Us makes it clear that very often the scariest being who threatens you is the person you see when you look in the mirror and as the threat applies to everyone in the world there is nowhere to run, due to the dangerous reflection of self being everywhere and at the end of the day we cannot run from our own identity, no matter how disturbing it may be to us. When I first saw Get Out the first after thought I had was it would be a great idea if Jordan Peele were to make a reboot to Candyman which has always been one of my favorite slasher film series. Sure enough it was announced after the success of Us that Jordan Peele was writing a Candyman sequel/reboot. With the Candyman reboot Peele did a great job of mixing the old with the new. He referred back to the original story of the Candyman brand and added a modern twist to it that was relevant to all current social injustices of racism still happening today. In the old days of the Candyman series I always thought it would have made sense for the Candyman to have some type of vigilante stance in fighting back against the same type of racism that killed him in his origin story, but in my mind that was just another truth based joke that would never materialize. Sure enough Jordan Peele made that thought provoking joke a reality in the new Candyman as it is revealed throughout the film that the supernatural Candyman spirit has become a weapon to avenge racial lynching's of Black men.

When fans leave a Jordan Peele film we always have a lot to unpack. We automatically start breaking down and reconstructing the messages he was trying to convey to us. We also go back and find a lot of symbolism that may have went over our heads when we first saw the film and it blows our minds in a way that makes us say “wow, it’s crazy that I didn’t catch that at first”. Sure enough we will see this genius of his again with the upcoming release of his newest film Nope, a film that will certainly have everyone ruminating on the symbolism and the hidden messages it conveys throughout its story. The subtlety of relevant messages and the way he incorporates them with his thought provoking storytelling not only makes Jordan Peele one of my favorite filmmakers and inspirations as a writer, but also a modern day auteur.