Thought provoking. Peele is emerging as a master craftsman

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2019)

The Us of the title are Jordan Peele's 'tethered' doppelgÃ¤ngers of North Americans who live underground. After many years underground the Rapture has arrived as predicted in Jeremiah 11:11 and the human race faces a challenge that it will struggle to overcome.
Peele's second horror is every bit as intellectually challenging as Get Out And like that debut features a fine central performance; this time in the form of Lupita Nyong'o, her family and their 'tethers'. For quite long sequences of the movie Nyong'o shares the screen with herself in absolutely seamless editing and post production that takes your breath away. In fact much of this film does that with its incredible design and vivid photography.
The main cast is almost exclusively black, but a fine cameo by Elizabeth Moss and her family is the exception.
A starting point may have been Michael Jackson's Thriller.
Nyong'o, as a young child in 1986, is drawn into this sinister underworld in a beach-side fairground show on Santa Cruz promenade. Wearing the Thriller T shirt her dad has won in a coconut shy she is taken from this world to a backdrop of Hands Across America, which was supported by Jackson.
It's not the scariest horror you will ever see (although it has enough jumps to keep your heart going) but it's one of the creepiest. It sits neatly in the latest greats of the genre (Get Out, It follows) that treats its viewer with respect and keeps you guessing right to the end.
I won't say much more as it will only lead me to spoilers but, put it this way, we are in the hands of a master craftsman here - his next movie project is a rewrite of Candyman by the way.