In 2012, Comedy Central debuted their latest series, Key and Peele, a sketch comedy show created by the duo of Keegan Michael-Key and Jordan Peele, who had previously gotten their big break on the hit comedy series MADtv. The show ran for 5 seasons up until 2015 and was a major critical hit, winning two Emmys and a Peabody Award and spawning several classic sketches such as Luther, President Barack Obama’s Anger Translator, and the East/West College Bowl, featuring football players with increasingly ridiculous names. Following its conclusion, both Key and Peele began to further their careers on their own accord, with Key taking on notable supporting roles in films like Tomorrowland and The Predator. Peele, meanwhile, transitioned into directing and started in the most unexpected place, the horror genre, with his 2017 directorial debut, Get Out. This psychological horror film about a black man who runs into trouble when he meets his white girlfriend’s family became one of the biggest hits of the year, grossing over $255 million worldwide on just a meager $4.5 million budget and amassing tons of critical praise from both critics and audiences. This ultimately led to Peele becoming the first African-American to win the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. But now he’s back with his second directorial outing, Us, which once again delves into the horror genre while also serving as the first big step in what looks to be a huge year for Peele given that he’s also developing a new revival of the iconic series, The Twilight Zone. And thanks to strong performances and an equally strong script, this effectively creepy flick does, in fact, feel like a Twilight Zone story.
During a seemingly normal summer, the Wilson family, consisting of matriarch Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), her husband Gabe (Winston Duke), and their two kids Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and Jason (Evan Alex) arrive at their beach home in Santa Cruz, California. While the family plans to have a relaxing vacation, Adelaide remains on edge due to a traumatic experience from her past when she visited the area with her parents in 1986, thus resulting in her being highly protective of her loved ones. This becomes especially important when, one night, Jason notices that four people are standing outside their house. When Gabe tries to ward them off, the four strangers manage to break into the house with relative ease. And if that wasn’t enough, Adelaide, Gabe, Zora, and Jason quickly discover that these four figures in red jumpsuits (Red, Abraham, Umbrae, and Pluto) look and act exactly like them (with Nyong’o, Duke, Joseph, and Alex also portraying their doppelgangers). As it turns out, the Wilson family’s doppelgangers are quite the violent bunch as they’re all armed with a pair of scissors and are hellbent on killing their ‘other selves’ so that they can take their place. Thus, the Wilsons find themselves having to survive this night of pure terror on their own against beings who always seem to be one step ahead of them. And as they soon find out, they aren’t the only ones who are experiencing this.
The first thing to note about this film is that you shouldn’t go into it expecting another Get Out. While both can be described as psychological horror films, these two films couldn’t be any more different when it comes to their themes and overall execution. Get Out, of course, was a horror-thriller steeped in extremely timely themes regarding race relations. Us, by comparison, is a bit more streamlined with its narrative but still manages to cover some deep themes from the struggle to overcome traumatic events in one’s life to the ongoing conversation of ‘haves vs. have nots’. It also surprisingly allows Peele the opportunity to show off his comedic sensibilities as this film features quite a bit of humor that mainly stems from banter amongst the main characters. By comparison, Get Out was a lot more serious (even though that didn’t stop the Golden Globes from nominating it for Best Comedy/Musical, for some reason) with almost all its ‘humorous’ moments coming courtesy of the incredibly self-aware Rod the TSA Agent. Ultimately, though, if there’s one major thing that these films have in common, it’s that they’re both full of strong themes and layered characters. And as a horror film, Us produces plenty of effectively creepy moments once the doppelgangers are properly introduced. Granted, it does take a little while for this to happen, but it’s a good kind of slow build-up that ultimately paves the way for a neat final twist that’s just as well-layered as the plot that it stems from.
Just like Get Out, Us also benefits from strong performances from its cast. It’s all headlined by Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide, who obviously gets the most character development in this film given that much of the plot revolves around that traumatic incident from her past and how she tries to move on from it. And because of it, it results in one heck of an emotionally-charged performance. She also has excellent chemistry with Winston Duke as Adelaide’s husband Gabe who, by comparison, plays more of a comedic role in the plot with some of the same self-aware quips as Rod from Get Out. And if you’ve seen Black Panther, then you’ll know exactly why Duke is more than qualified for such a role. Closing out the main quartet of leads are newcomers Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex as the Wilson kids Zora and Jason, who manage to be a lot more resourceful than most kids in horror films as they play an active role in the family’s efforts to fend off their doppelgangers. And on that note, a key aspect of this film is, of course, the fact that these cast members also portray their doppelgangers, who are referred to in this film as ‘the Tethered’. Everyone handles these dual roles very well, with each of them managing to make their Tethered an effectively freaky shadow in their own unique way (e.g. Jason’s Tethered, Pluto, mirrors his exact movements while also sharing Jason’s habit of wearing a mask). Like before, though, it’s Nyong’o who steals the show as her doppelganger, Red, who’s notably the only Tethered of the bunch who can speak (albeit in a raspy tone, but the point still stands) whereas all the other Tethered folks are either silent or restricted to grunts and screeches.
Thanks to both this and Get Out, it can very well be argued that Jordan Peele is at the forefront of the horror genre’s recent renaissance. When I mentioned his upcoming reboot of Twilight Zone in the intro, that was, in fact, intentional as both of his current directorial efforts feel like they directly stem from that franchise’s brand of storytelling. In fact, Peele has even listed a specific episode of the show, ‘Mirror Image’, as a key influence for this film. Nevertheless, Us is yet another excellent directorial outing from him that avoids being nothing more than just a carbon copy of Get Out. Sure, this one isn’t quite as focused on timely themes as much as Get Out was, but the attention to detail when it comes to its themes and character development is still second to none. And because of this, Us boasts an incredibly well-layered narrative that slowly but surely builds up to a solid conclusion that gives several of the scenes that came before it a whole new context upon repeat viewings. It also helps that the film sports an excellent ensemble cast, all of whom do a terrific job handling the challenging dual roles of their characters’ normal selves and their sinister Tethered doppelgangers. In short, Us is yet another brilliant addition to the recent string of excellent horror films that we’ve been getting these past few years. And if that wasn’t enough, who would’ve guessed that many of these would end up coming from filmmakers who are primarily known more for their comedic projects, including the likes of David Gordon Green (the 2018 Halloween sequel), John Krasinski (A Quiet Place), and of course, one of the minds behind Comedy Central’s sketch comedy series Key and Peele.
Rating: 5/5!
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