Gareth Edwards is totally right with his “rubbish film” theory; this is why so many films trying to be the next “Get Out” have failed. The metaphor must support the story, and not the other way around. Ultimately, the story must steer the ship and must be in control of how the film is executed. Edwards continued:
“So you get attracted to an idea, there’s something very primal about it that pulls you — like, ‘There’s something that needs to be said about this subject matter.’ And it’s about halfway through making a film or writing a film where you start to realize where that thing is. It’s sort of, it’s like a child. It tells you what they want to be when they grow up. So you learn what it is, and then you try to help it.”
“The Twilight Zone” was so good at this, because Rod Serling always let the story be the star. For example, the episodes “Eye of the Beholder” and (my personal favorite) “Number 12 Looks Just Like You” are both stories about impossible beauty standards and societal pressure to look a certain way, but presented in wildly different formats. Both stories were adaptations of existing material, so while they tackle similar social issues, the execution was interpreted from dissimilar perspectives.