There is a thin line in horror movies between comedy and horror. It is a more difficult distinction to make than one might imagine. In that moment of intense tension before a scare, it is a natural impulse to want to laugh away the pain. The audience wants be amused, or be scared, or something, anything but stay in suspense. It is a truth that directors have to be aware of, and it is a line that most directors want to avoid. There’s nothing worse than an intended scare getting a laugh, and such a loss of control can kill the entire focus and tone of a movie. Get Out, directed by Key and Peele’s Jordan Peele not only understands this delicate line, but uses it, transforming an easy pitfall into an intentional and powerful tool.

Get Out delves into the realm of comedy horror of the past, bringing strains of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Scream, and more recently The Visit to the table, but captures a tone of comedic horror that no movie has managed before. The genius of this film lies in its concept – a white woman, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), bringing her black boyfriend, Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya), home to meet the family in the countryside. Simple enough – the kind of concept that could make for a funny Meet the Parents kind of vibe. But Peele presents us with strains of horror right off the bat, interwoven with the comedy. The situation is perfect for both genres. After all, what could provide more horror-like tension than an accidental racist comment made across the dinner table?

Peele shows us that the tension of a comedy and the tension of a horror movie can be one and the same. We want to laugh, and we do, but something almost stops us. Are the slightly off comments of the entirely-white friends and family at the house just slightly ignorant slips, or do they mask something more sinister? Have the smiling black servants merely adopted a more “white” way of talking, or has a more horrific change taken place? It is this direct blend of horror and comedy that steps this movie above its predecessors. We laugh to relieve the horror, but the horror and the comedy aren’t separate. They’re one and the same. Upon a second viewing, we might be less inclined to laugh, knowing what is to come.

And what is to come does not disappoint. This movie’s horror aspects delve into and physicalize subjugation, slavery, and cultural appropriation, taking these ideas to their natural, horrific extremes. The movie revolves around hypnotization, a capturing of someone’s psyche, and controlling their mind directly. A smiling face, the sound of a spoon scraping against a cup drop our hero’s pain and nuance beneath the surface, into “the sunken place” where all pain and discomfort are hidden away and forgotten, but are not truly gone. The horror has a basis in the racism of the portrayal of African Americans in early American cinema and even earlier portrayals of African Americans in literature and propaganda. The smiling, pacified Uncle Tom, and the blackface of old films are both present in Get Out‘s complex psyche. When Chris tells a black servant, Georgina (Betty Gabriel) that he “gets nervous when there are too many white people around,” she goes into a restrained frenzy, frozen with a plastered smile, head shaking, a single tear streaming from one eye, repeating benignly “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” The effect of a horror so restrained and based in such real history is an intense one. In Get Out Peele has created a truly disturbing and frightening psychological horror based upon the subtle and persistent racism that is still alive in America today. It speaks to the power and truth of this basis, that when we see police lights on the horizon, shorthand for salvation in most horror movies, we are immediately worried for Chris, a black man, instead of the true monsters.

The performances of the film are what make Get Out‘s horror work. The subtle restrain of a servant’s smile, the sarcasm behind Chris’ endurance of the family’s friendly ignorance, the discomfort in the father , Dean Armitage’s (Bradley Whitford), bumbling explanation of why the family has black servants, “I would have voted for Obama for a third time if I could have,” and the daggers behind the smiling face of the mother, Missy Armitage (Catherine Keener), as she quietly interrogates Chris about the death of his mother, softly stirring her tea, all make Get Out the gradual, subtle, and doomed journey that it is. The film’s horror and comedy both rest heavily in the performances. Every sudden swing to Georgina’s smiling face, every roll of Chris’ eyes, the way that Andre Logan King (Lakeith Stanfield), a black family friend, reaches out to shake Chris’ outstretched fist, meant for a fist bump, and happily informs the family that “Chris was just explaining to me that my presence here makes him much more comfortable” are written and timed to make us laugh, but performed to make us increasingly uncomfortable. The subtlety in the performances brings us believably and inevitably from awkward humor to sinister, truly terrifying circumstances. It might require a second viewing to understand the true depth of these performances, and the mastery of both director and actor in masking something so terrifying as something so genuinely funny.

Get Out is not without flaw, and frustratingly so, as its failings are so separate from its successes that they could have easily been cut down, or out, altogether. The film has a nasty habit of consistently cutting away to Chris’ friend, Rod Williams (LilRel Howery), a goofy, fat TSA officer who is taking care of Chris’ dog while Chris is away. Rod is the comic relief in a movie that doesn’t need any comic relief. With this character, Peele very nearly undermines the entirety of what makes Get Out so genius, falling into the failings of its inspirations by dividing the comedy and horror that the majority of the movie so ingeniously combines. As things in the country descend further and further into the horrific, Peele cuts more and more frequently to Rod, in sequences so unnecessary and so different in both tone, writing, and filming style from the movie proper that they feel as if they were directed by an entirely different director. Instead of remaining in the tension and subtlety that so ingeniously create both the horror and comedy of the film, Peele resorts to obvious jokes and over-the-top performances, which feel like low-end Key and Peele skits, made worse by the fact that they are actively keeping us from the action. It is here that Peele, based so heavily in comedy for so many years, perhaps reveals his one failing. He seems almost afraid to remain in the horror for too long. Throughout a harrowing and intense sequence, Peele repeatedly cuts away to levity, undermining the intense horror, fatigue, and strain that Chris, and the audience, should be feeling. It’s a disappointing and extremely noticeable failing in a movie with such a unique tone to cut to a tone so cliched. It would be like The Shining cutting to a scene from Seinfeld right as Jack Torrence puts the axe through the bathroom door.

Get Out is a unique and revolutionary film that speaks from a voice so original that it’s amazing how true it’s voice rings. With this debut, an intensely positive response from critics and fans (the full theatre I sat in had more applause throughout the film than I’ve experienced since seeing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part II opening night), and a film that will inspire intense discussion, theory, and fandom, Jordan Peele has made his mark on the horror genre, and proven that he can do much, much more that just hilarious comedy sketches. Go see Get Out this weekend, and prepare to laugh, shudder, and stay up all night staring at the darkness with thoughts of a horror that extends beyond the silver screen.