It
always comes back to the 1980s, especially when the subject is horror movies.
In this case, we start our yarn in 1986, but the influence of the Eighties will
still be clearly evident when the tale picks up sometime roughly now. It starts
by name-checking C.H.U.D., the
original there-are-bad-things-below-our-streets-and-it’s-the-government’s-fault
B-movie and ultimately shows up Hands Across America as the cultish,
attention-seeking behavior it so obviously was. The doppelgangers will stock
their entitled analogs in Jordan Peele’s Us,
which releases today on DVD.
When
she was a child, Adelaide Wilson gave her parents a bit of a scare when she
wandered off along the Santa Cruz boardwalk, getting lost in a hall of mirrors.
She returned ostensibly safe and sound, but to this day, she remains haunted by
an encounter with her doppelganger. In the present day, Adelaide and Gabe
Wilson are like the horror movie Huxtables. He proudly wears his Howard
University sweatshirt, but his primary concern is keeping up with their
well-heeled frienemies, the Tyler family. Then one fateful night, the Wilsons
see four shadowy figures who look a lot like them standing ominously in their
driveway, as you probably know from the trailer.
It
is not a casual social call. The game is on, but it would be spoilery to reveal
the revelations that will come out as the stressful night continues. Us lends itself to a fair number of
class-conscious interpretations, but it represents a vast improvement over
Peele’s wildly over-hyped Get Out,
starting with the happy fact that it truly is a horror movie rather than a
gimmicky thriller with an assortment of genre trappings.
In
fact, the film is pretty intense. To Peele’s credit, he proves he can throw
down the fear old school 80’s style. He also hints at the chaotic global
picture in intriguing ways, without detracting from the micro-tension of the
Wilsons’ ordeal (not unlike later installments of Romero’s Living Dead franchise).
One cool thing about Us is the
proliferation of internet debates regarding what really happened and the symbolic meaning of it all, whereas even
for admirers of Get Out, it was all
cut-and-dried up there on the screen.
When
not working on Marvel/Star Wars/Disney properties, Lupita Nyong’o could become
a new Jamie Lee Curtis based on her work in Us
and the sweet zombie comedy Little Monsters. As Adelaide Wilson, she
has to imply some strange and complicated emotional responses we shouldn’t
really get into, but she pulls it off quite assuredly. It is the sort of
performance many viewers will want to re-watch with the benefit of hindsight.
Winston
Duke nicely counterbalances Nyong’o as the more passive, easy-going Gabe.
Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex are both terrific as pre-teen daughter Zora
Wilson and her younger brother Jason, as well as their doppelgangers. However,
Elisabeth Moss shamelessly steals her scenes as catty Kitty Tyler.
Us has no post-credit
stinger, so it saves us that annoyance. Peele packs in a lot of weirdness, but
it all has a role to play, so do not forget about the opening images. Most importantly,
Us represents a major departure from Get Out, because it is actually scary.
Recommended for horror fans, Us releases
today on DVD and BluRay.
