Us is the new suspense horror from Jordan Peele who directed the 2017 break out hit, Get Out.
Us begins showing a young Adelaide played by Madison Curry who is visiting a carnival with her two parents. While her father is distracted playing an arcade game, Adelaide wanders off down to the beach where she comes across a house of mirrors and inside encounters a frightening reflection.
The film skips forward 20 or so years later where Adelaide is now a grown adult played by Lupita Nyong’o and married to her goofball of a husband Gabe Wilson played by Winston Duke. The two parents embark on a journey to their beach house for the summer with their daughter Zora played by Shahadi Wright Joesph and son Jason played by Evan Alex.
After revisiting the nearby beach Adelaide once visited as a child. Adelaide expresses to Gabe that she doesn’t feel comfortable and wants to go home before shortly discovering there is a family of four standing on the driveway in the dark. The mysterious family break into the house and the Wilson’s come face to face with their doppelgängers dressed all in red, leaving them frighten and confused. With not many words being spoken by the doppelgängers, each family member gets paired with their evil half and are separated for one another. To protect their family members, The Wilson’s must go along with their evil half and do what they can to survive at all costs.
I found myself enjoying this movie a lot. With plenty of frightening scenes and some great one-liners, this movie surely delivers an excellent performance from the actors, displays great detailed visuals and possesses an incredible film score.
I admit, I had read the plot for Us prior to seeing the film and to me, it had already sounded confusing. But I was keen and intrigued to try solving the puzzle in my head prior to the film ending. Even though I wasn’t able to fully figure it out before all the answers were revealed, the film is paced nicely by leaving a breadcrumb of clues to solve the riddle and mysteries of the storyline.
All the actors did such a great job playing two characters each and essentially having to interact with themselves. While most of the doppelgängers did not speak, Lupita’s character Amanda’s evil half, Red spoke the most words in a deep, creepy and husky voice. The whole Wilsons family cast did a phenomenal job convincingly channelling a darker character making you believe that both The Wilson’s and doppelgängers were done by two separate actors, which was outstanding.
Jordan Peele did a great job with Us. He directed and wrote a movie that’s filled with not just gore and suspenseful horror, but a film that shows tribute and references to classic films such as The Lost Boys, The Goonies, and more.
Us is in cinemas now across Australia.