What gives these scenes in Get Out<\/i> and Raw <\/i>special significance is not any original take on them (though Raw <\/i>does achieve such), but, rather, what they reveal about the films\u2019 themes and what they tell us about the primal fears that lay in the heart of the modern body-horror film. (Spoilers for both films follow.) <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n Though Jordan Peele\u2019s crossover hit Get Out<\/i> does kick off with a scene of slowly mounting dread that involves a car, its first true jump scare comes a few minutes later. The hero of the film, Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), is traveling through upstate New York to meet the family of his new girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) when their car clips a deer that\u2019s darted out in front of them.<\/p>\n The way the scene plays out \u2014 Chris lingers at the edge of the woods, listening to the deathly whimpering of the wounded deer somewhere within the pines \u2014 will be recalled during a pivotal moment during the climax of the film, and a re-watch of the scene makes plain certain clues regarding both Chris and Rose. But the scene remains at the forefront of the viewer\u2019s mind throughout, thanks to a leitmotif of deer that Peele repeatedly returns to.<\/span><\/p>\n When the couple finally arrives at her family\u2019s estate, one of the first signs that something sinister is afoot comes in the form of a rambling speech Rose\u2019s father gives after hearing about their accident, in which he declares his hatred for deer. He describes them as an infestation and public nuisance and claims he would wipe out their whole species if he could. It\u2019s impossible to miss the racial undertones here, even as Dr. Armitage (Bradley Whitford) goes over and above to make known his enlightened liberal outlook. (\u201cI would have voted for Obama a third time if I could\u201d was primed to become the go-to shorthand for clueless white condescension \u2014 at least until Pepsi decided to film a Kardashian handing a cop one of their soda cans.)<\/span><\/p>\n Once the true motivation for Chris\u2019s visit is revealed \u2014 Rose and her family have been abducting black folks for decades, subjecting them to a ghastly medical procedure, invented by the family\u2019s patriarch, in which rich, aging whites can have their consciousness transplanted into these younger bodies \u2014 it becomes apparent that Peele has hit upon the perfect metaphor for the lie of post-racial America. Not only does black culture continue to be co-opted by corporate America (see again: Pepsi), black bodies are still subject to the will of the white power structure (see Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, and countless other examples). Here, Peele uses the vehicle of the social drama-cum-horror film to make the fear of this reality visceral in a way that white audiences will understand, and audiences of color will recognize. <\/span><\/p>\n This is a new kind of body horror, one where the transgressive thrill of grotesque physical transformation is replaced by the existential horror of being a prisoner in one\u2019s own body.<\/span><\/p>\n Peele adds further weight to his metaphor by tying Chris \u2014 and by extension, black America \u2014 explicitly to that deer from the first act. If Dr. Armitage is the smiling facade of white America that would just as soon be rid of other races, his wife is the stern assimilationist who seeks to forcibly subjugate them to her will (via her powers of hypnosis), not unlike someone training an animal.<\/p>\n The two Armitage youngsters, meanwhile, are hunters. The son, Jeremy, all bluster and male ego, is a sport hunter (he sizes up Chris in terms of pure animalistic physicality, in a manner that brings to mind the dehumanization of black bodies during chattel slave auctioneering). As soon as he spots suitable prey he goes in for the \u201ckill.\u201d Rose, by contrast, is a master trophy hunter. Her walls lined with photographs of her previous conquests, she spends her evenings researching her next victims \u2014 only the best will do for her, and she\u2019ll take her time to track and bag them.<\/span><\/p>\n It is fitting, then, that each of the Armitages meets their end in increasingly ironic circumstances once the tables are turned on them. Peele has his hero use the means of his oppression to first free himself (he literally does so by picking cotton), and then extract vengeance: Dr. Armitage finds himself on the receiving end of a mounted deer head\u2019s sharp horns; Mrs. Armitage is killed in the very den where she attempted to \u201cdomesticate\u201d Chris; psychotic jock Jeremy is beaten half to death with a bocce ball before having his own MMA strategy used against him; and Rose, who we earlier watched so callously dismiss the suffering of the deer that she hit, is gunned down with a hunting rifle by one of her former prey, on the very same road, and left for dead. One can\u2019t help but think of the saying, popular in hip-hop: \u201cHunting ain\u2019t no fun when the rabbit\u2019s got the gun.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n If Get Out<\/i> doesn\u2019t seem interested in the more tactile set pieces that one usually finds in the genre of body horror, Julia Ducournau\u2019s Raw <\/i>is rife with them. <\/span><\/p>\n Raw\u2019s<\/i> opening scene involves a car careening off the road when a hooded woman darts out from the surrounding countryside and throws herself in front of it. As the car slams into a tree, the woman continues to lie down as though she were roadkill herself. Eventually, she stands up and moves deliberately over to the victims of the wreck. In time we will come to know the identity of this person, as well as her motivation, but right from the start we are given to understand that this will be a film where the line between human and animal instincts is fine enough to be almost indistinguishable.<\/span><\/p>\n After vegetarian veterinary student Justine is forced to eat a raw rabbit kidney during a freshman hazing ritual, she develops a rabid craving for raw flesh, especially of the human variety. This new craving intermingles with, and becomes inseparable from, her blossoming sexuality, even as she begins to discover that she is not the only one in her family with these desires. <\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/mv5bmji0mdkymjixn15bml5banbnxkftztgwodywnjuzmti_._v1_sx1500_.jpg\")
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