A Reel Review: US

In 2018, writer and director Jordan Peele gave the horror genre the shot in the arm it needed with his genre-bending GET OUT, which not only provided scares and chills but also served as a statement on race-relations and class distinctions. Here in 2019, Peele is back with US, which is cut from the same cloth as GET OUT…but with a whole new stitching. 

Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), her husband Gabe (Winston Duke), and her children Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and Jason (Evan Alex), arrive at their summer home to be tormented by their doppelgangers.

To say much more of the plot would be a sin, for US is put together of many twists and turns and slow revelations towards the mystery of the creepy and deadly doppelgangers. Where they came from and what they are up to is closely tied to an incident Adelaide had in her past, and Peele sprinkles clues and hints throughout the film to inch us closer to the revelation. Every little thing in the film has meaning, which turns a simple home-invasion horror film into a thinking-man’s horror flick; scary yet intricate. 

Similar to GET OUT, Peele is playing with larger themes of society, with class distinction, specifically the have’s and the have-nots. Early in the film Gabe is jealous of their friends (played by Elizabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker), and this serves as a loose metaphor to the doppelgangers and where they came from. It’s much more subtle than how GET OUT presented itself, and it works smoothly and efficiently and the when the larger picture sinks in there’s a lot to be impressed by. 

Equally impressive are the scares. The doppelgangers, with the exception of one, communicate in animalistic sounds and are chilling to the bone. The scares are effective, and the creepy atmosphere keeps everything feeling unhinged. Winks and nods to classic horror films are sprinkled here and there without being intrusive, although there are some horror-film cliches that can’t be avoided; such as characters fist-fighting their way through the film and a fresh surprise just when everything seems settled. 

Acting is superb. The primary cast has the task of playing two different parts, and all perform well with Lupita Nyong’o excelling above all. A lot of credit must be given to the younger performers; Shahadi Wright and Evan Alex have a lot of physical work to do and are both excellent. 

Just when we think we have US all figured out, the last few minutes deliver a whopper of a mind-bending twist which flips the entire film upside-down. It works so well that US immediately demands a re-watch so everything can be seen in a new, and correct light. Jordan Peele has crafted a masterpiece of horror that brings the scares and stimulates our thinking.  It winds up as one of those films that sticks in our minds, and the more we think about it, the more revelations we find. 

BOTTOM LINE: See it