Us

The Kane family arrive at their little holiday home which is within spitting distance of the beach where Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) experienced a traumatic event that would plague her for the rest of her life. The family do not know of this trauma and spend the day on the very same beach. Shortly after Jason, briefly, disappears the family return home only to experience a restless and traumatic night.

I like Jordan Peale. I like him a lot. Too many directors dismiss the horror genre with a comment that seems to distance their work away from a genre as lowly as horror. Of late horror has seen a number of impressive and bold films that have reached an audience beyond the fan base. This is great news; however, people have used this opportunity to diminish the genre by calling these films ‘elevated horror’ or by saying they are ‘more than just a horror film’ thereby crapping one on the most daring and progressive genres in the medium. Thankfully, Peale put a stop to this by calling his film a ‘horror’ in the face of critics calling it a ‘thriller’.

The same dismissiveness of the genre was popular when Get Out was released. People were going out of their way to label it anything but a horror film by calling it “social horror” because something as cheap horror can’t seemingly tackle difficult themes. Like his previous film, Us is a look at American society as it could easily be seen an allegory for how the affluent feed off the poor who are left to live in the shadows. There are many ways to look at the film and Peele leaves it ambiguous enough for us to draw our own interpretations (perhaps its a story about truama and the impact it has on the whole family).

Peele’s understanding of how the horror genre ticks makes the film really work. He spends enough time with the family to make us care for them so when the familiar looking home invaders force their way in we are invested in the story. Peele’s film isn’t a ‘jumpy’ horror film it gets its shuddering chill factor from the alien and unearthly feeling of being attacked by something taking the form of yourself and the people you cherish. Can you really kill something that looks like you or your daughter? These dark clones may look the same but their alien movements and animal like behaviour is what separates them from what is deemed to be correct human behaviour.

The creepiness of these doppelgangers is owed to the brilliant physical performances of the stars who all give an unearthly quality to their creepy clones. The star of the show is Lupita Nyong'o whose Adelaide Kane is the glue that keeps the family together in a time of crisis. She is able give Adelaide a steely resolve and make the Adelaide clone the most unnerving of the tethered family. The strange inhumane movements and that raspy voice sounds as though it comes from something that has lived in the dark for most of its life. Neglected and angry it no longer wants to live in the shadows.

The film is beautifully shot, and the use of music is as funny (perfect timing of NWA’s Fuck The Police) as it is creepy (the score reminded me Jerry Goldsmith’s score from The Omen). The initial home invasion is incredibly tense, but once the film expands its scope it loses some of that tension, but it gains something back in a devilishly delightful, dark narrative.

 

4/5