Thrilling and chilling film with relevant theme

Rating: 9/10 (7 December 2019)

Directed by 2017's breakout director Jordan Peele, new horror-thriller Us starts out with a prelude different than most horror movies in this era of cookie-cutter films. Opening with an ominous sequence in the 80s, the audience discovers the frightening encounter of young girl at a carnival with an identical clone (or doppleganger) of herself. Subsequently, the movie skips into the present day where this girl, now an adult, is visiting the same area with a family of her own. Whilst the film spends much of the first third in a easygoing and funny light (especially thanks to the father played by Winston Duke and the comedic genius of Jordan Peele), there always remains the ominous background to the story. The main character, Adelaide Wilson played by Lupita Nyong'o, has a constant sense of foreboding about the area and is afraid of the beach where the carnival took place. Eventually, the film breaks into all out horror with a tense and unsurprisingly frightening scene detailing a home invasion of the main characters by individuals who resemble them in appearance, yet as a more broken copy (the young boy is scarred with burns, and only one of them is able to speak). The movie continues to evolve and covers a wider scope. However, for fear of giving away the climactic and chilling final third of the film, I will end my storyline there.
In many ways, the film resembles a stereotypical horror film. The traditional teaser, the laidback, "it's good while it lasts" feeling enveloping the first part with a strong sense of something about to go bad. Then comes the small scale horror, the first mini-climax of the film, followed by a crescendo into absolute madness and horror that brings the film to it's hopefully scary conclusion. But this film has a depth that lacks in many other contemporary horror flicks. The humor isn't the one-dimensional robotic puns and jokes present in works by writers whose comedic touch is amaterur at best. Jordan Peele's background in Key & Peele, among other comedy works, shines through here. Humor is constantly provided, and it fits the characters and story perfectly. The home-invasion that makes up a significant portion of the second act and constitutes as the mini-climax of the film is claustrophobic and tense, yet provides a different sense of horror than in other parts of the film. The ending of the film may be overwhelming and could seem rushed to a picky viewer, but is in fact rampant with strong symbolism, imagery and meaning tieing itself to the central core of unity, representation, similarities and actual appearances. Not many horror films illicit the amount of depth and provide the same extent of meaningful allusions like this movie. The only other film in recent memory to essentially do this is Peele's 2017 classic Get Out. Whilst that movie was a more contained piece, highlighting contemporary civil rights dilemmas and what not, this film has a broader focus that highlights themes relevant to a grand majority of Americans, if not individuals across the globe. This film utilizes a similar foundation to other horror films, yet manages to escape from the traditional entrapments instilled and creates a wholly original and thought provoking film in the process.
In terms of specific aspects, the film has a beautiful sense of light, with successive scenes receiving considerably darker hues corresponding to the increasingly dark storyline of the film. Shadows and coincidences are strong motifs in the film, and the camera work proves stellar in highlighting these occurrences throughout the movie. They draw just enough attention for the audience to notice, but not too much for it to become a distraction. The acting is superb, especially from the four leads staring as the principal family and their doppelgangers in the movie. The music is perfect, mainly drawing on works from established artists, presenting the pieces in unique and sometimes funny ways (watch the Police scene as a good example). The retooling of the music in a key sequence near the film's conclusion proves stunning and goes hand in hand with expert camera work.
Us is the rare type of original work that manages to match a two-time director's first, already superb, work. The films aren't competing in quality but instead are complementary to each other, touching on different themes, while effectively working to promote the currently declining quality of the horror genre in general. Films like Us are important as they provide an opportunity for us to get scared, while also providing ideas and concepts to sleep on only to be woken up by horrifying nightmares of a personal clone hellbent on killing you.