AS twisted as it is cutting, Get Out is one of the most original horrors of the last few years which turns conventions on their head.

Directors and writers have often used films for social commentary on race issues from slavery to the Civil Rights movement to prejudice in modern day.

But no movie has looked at the issue in quite the same way as actor-turned-filmmaker Jordan Peele’s debut feature which puts white middle class America through the wringer.

Get Out is one of those films where the less you know the better. It has a menacing plot that you will likely not see coming.

Suffice to say it almost plays out like an episode of Black Mirror where an everyday situation becomes uncomfortable fast before going to a very dark place.

The story sees Rose (Allison Williams) bringing her black boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) home to meet her parents for the first time.

They try hard to find common ground with Chris with awkward chats about things like the merits of Barack Obama’s presidency.

But not everything is as it seems when he appears to be the guest of honour at a garden party.

Some early scenes in the film are a bit too heavy handed when Peele is at pains to point out how black people in America are sometimes treated with suspicion or even as second class citizens.

British actor Daniel Kaluuya has been arguably miscast too.

He is a great actor and very likeable but he is playing an African American and plainly has a London accent.

But for all its surprises and as an exaggerated metaphor for racial tensions that can lurk just below the surface of polite society, Get Out is genuinely chilling, shocking and unpredictable.

The well-paced film deftly manages to juggle social commentary, dark humour and horror and reveals Peele as a writer and director to keep an eye on in the years ahead.

RATING: 8/10

DAVID MORGAN