Gloomy mystery

Rating: 8/10 (28 March 2019)

Us is an American horror movie with and by Jordan Peele who is the mastermind behind the Academy Award winning Get Out, a horror movie dealing with social issues such as racial discrimination. His most recent film doesn't deal with social issues and balances horror elements with mystery sequences.
The film's weakest point is the plot. Even though it sounds intriguing at first, it leaves many questions unanswered and even comes around with quite a few plot holes towards the end. The predictable twist can't save the messy script either. The movie revolves around a young girl who encounters a mysterious doppelgänger in a hall of mirrors which leaves her mentally tormented. Several decades later, she reluctantly returns to the region where she experienced this trauma and soon starts noticing strange occurences. She tries to convince her husband to depart with their two children but her doppelgänger and her family soon break into their cottage and attempt to kill them to take their places. The family manages to escape and realizes that citizen all around the region are being attacked by their doppelgängers. The young woman must confront the demons of her past in order to find a way to stop them.
This horror movie convinces with numerous elements. It has an uneasy atmosphere right from the start that never lets go until its partial conclusion. The acting performances are authentic and especially lead actress Lupita Nyong'o is incredible as tormented soul with a heart of gold and remarkable resilience. Even the child actresses and actors deliver the goods in this film. The opening sequence takes place in the eighties and has a cool nostalgic flair. The locations are carefully chosen and especially the scenes in the hall of mirrors are memorable.
Even though the movie isn't particularly scary and frustrates with a few plot holes, it is overall very entertaining and its strong acting performances, intense atmosphere and intriguing locations pardon for the film's minor flaws. I hesitated between giving the film seven or eight points but since I was thoroughly entertained by it at the local movie theatre, I decided to give it the better of the two grades. If you like mysterious horror films, you are going to appreciate this film.