Not really a horror movie

Rating: 4/10 (23 October 2019)

The marketing of movies... it's a machine that often doesn't represent the actual film. This is marketed as a horror film when it's really a dramatic parable with some violence. This movie is "scary" in a sense - it's representative of deeper themes about America, and we live in scary times (though I did think those thematic elements were a little heavy-handed). So yeah, the message is important, sure. But is the film actually entertaining? Not as much as I would have liked it to have been.
Unlike Peele's directorial debut "Get Out," I didn't feel pulled into any of the main character's emotions in "Us," nor did I feel like their situation was unfolding in a way that pulled me in. The only scene that was effective with that is the one you see in the trailer - the dad/husband standing in front of his house questioning why his neighbors are standing like creepy statues in the distance. Beyond that, I never felt engaged with what the main characters were going through in the moment. Thus, I was never actually scared for them. It was written/directed in a way that made me feel like a passive viewer from a distance. And there were moments that were clearly meant to be serious that felt campy and funny. A lot of crashing stinger sound effects were meant to create jump scares but there was no actual jumping on my part.
That said, the cinematography was pretty, and I do like the overall concept and theme of the film. I just didn't enjoy the execution of it. If this weren't Peele's follow-up to the far superior "Get Out," it would never have gotten such buzz and exposure nor pulled in the box office numbers that it did.