Now that Comedy Central’s brilliant sketch show Key & Peele will be ending, the stars are moving on to other projects. For Jordon Peele, he’ll next be writing and directing a horror film called Get Out, about an African-American man who visits his Caucasian girlfriend’s family estate.
“People know me for my work in comedy, but now I’ll get to focus on my passion for writing and directing horror films. Like comedy, horror has an ability to provoke thought and further the conversation on real social issues in a very powerful way. Get Out takes on the task of exploring race in America, something that hasn’t really been done within the genre since Night Of The Living Dead 47 years ago. It’s long overdue.”
Peele is referring to the racial undertones in George Romero’s classic 1968 zombie film (you can watch it in full here). In the film’s finale [SPOILER], the protagonist, played by black actor Duane Jones, is tragically gunned down because he’s presumed to be a zombie. However, as it was 1968, his skin color implies the killing may have been racially motivated. That is very possible, and it definitely adds a very interesting layer to the film, although Romero has stated that the script always called for that ending, even before they had cast a black actor in the role. Either way, it will be very interesting to see how Peele handles the subject.
Source-Deadline