Jordan Peele To Write And Direct Horror Movie 'Get Out'

For the past three years, Jordan Peele has succeeded in making us laugh as one-half of Comedy Central's Key and Peele. Now he wants to make us scream.

Peele is set to write and direct a horror film called Get Out. While this will be his first attempt at straight-faced horror, it's not that crazy a leap. His many horror-influenced sketches on Key and Peele have demonstrated that he his way around the look, feel, and traditions of the genre. Hit the jump for more on the Jordan Peele horror movie.

I've been spending the first half of my career focusing on comedy but my goal, in all honesty, is to write and direct horror movies. I have one that I'm working on with Darko Entertainment called Get Out – I don't want to say too much about it, but it is one of the very, very few horror movies that does jump off of racial fears. That to me is a world that hasn't been explored. Specifically, the fears of being a black man today. The fears of being any person who feels like they're a stranger in any environment that is foreign to them. It deals with a protagonist that I don't see in horror movies.

(We had already known that Peele and Darko had a horror project brewing, but this is all new info.)

How Peele will handle less comic material remains to be seen. But if nothing else, the themes should be right in his wheelhouse. Black male protagonists are so rare in horror, it's a running joke that "the black guy always dies first." Who better than Peele, whose show tackles contemporary racial issues with subversive humor each week, to try and correct course?

Although Peele and partner Keegan-Michael Key shot to fame on TV, the duo has been eyeing the big screen as of late. Also in the works for them are a Substitute Teacher movie, based on the character from their sketches, and Keanu, which is not about the actor but a stolen cat. Last spring, they also signed on to produce the Police Academy reboot.

While we wait for Get Out, get a look at Peele's latest take on (funny) horror in the "Make-a-Wish" Key and Peele sketch below.

And here's "Family Matters," which does an even better job of selling Key and Peele's knack for creepiness. We've posted this one before, but it's just so damn good.