Key & Peele may have come to an end, but its stars are having no trouble keeping themselves busy. A couple of weeks back, Flavorwire brought you a report from the set of Keegan-Michael Key’s latest project, the Mike Birbiglia-helmed Don’t Think Twice; now, Variety is reporting Jordan Peele has made a deal to not only star, but write and direct the horror thriller Get Out.
The film—whose title recalls this bit from Eddie Murphy: Delirious about how black people would handle horror movie scenarios—finds Peele playing a young man visiting his (white) girlfriend’s family estate, which presumably doesn’t go so well (this being a horror movie and all).
“People know me for my work in comedy, but now I’ll get to focus on my passion for writing and directing horror films,” Peele said. “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.”
Some may argue with the specifics of that last point—a case can be made for Candyman and People Under the Stairs , to say nothing of the 1970s and 1990s all-black horror mini-booms—but he’s right about the genre’s possibilities, and should cook up something very interesting.
Get Out’s producer is Jason Blum, whose Blumhouse Productions makes a specialty of well-crafted horror movies that turn their low budgets into big profits (their credits include the Paranormal Activity movies, the Insidious series, The Gift , and The Visit ). Get Out sounds well within that tradition.