Well-executed Stupidity

Rating: 6/10 (20 March 2019)

This movie does well a lot of the same things that Get Out did well. The characters are fleshed out and interesting, the dialogue is compelling, and the humor hits hard and at terrific moments of tension. Unfortunately, the plot of Us is really weak. It grows weaker as the movie goes and you start seeing ways that it just doesn't make any logical sense. I had a lot of "Then, how would this work?" moments in the latter third as the plot revealed itself. There were also some just plain silly choices with the "scary" aspects such as the way the main antagonist speaks (in inhales) and physical mimicry by non-speaking characters.
I had the misfortune of sitting next to one of those easily frightened, jumps at everything viewers. The first twenty minutes or so, I thought I'd go mad having her next to me. But, she loosened up considerably as the movie went on and became much less scary. And that was my feeling with the movie too. There is a lot of potential for terror with random people that show up bearing scissors in the middle of the night. Instead, it just got more like a Twilight Zone episode, where the concept is only fleshed out long enough to suit a 30 minute format.