Photo Credit: Universal/Blumhouse/Monkeypaw Productions
After the worldwide (and much, much, MUCH deserved) acclaim for Jordan Peele’s socially conscious horror thriller Get Out, the former Key & Peele star and his Monkeypaw Productions announced his follow up, the aptly titled Us, and snatched the collective wig of fans across the globe.
From gate, Peele has stated in numerous interviews that the new horror pic starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke wasn’t going to share the same tone as Get Out, and he stayed true to his word, which probably fell on a lot of deaf ears. So what’s the mystery of Us?
The Rundown
Adelaide Wilson and her family consisting of husband Gabe, daughter Zora, and son Jason are vacationing in Santa Cruz, California at Adelaide’s childhood home. A trip to the beach raises Adelaide’s concerns as she notices a lot of bizarre coincidences happening that remind her of a traumatic event during her childhood. As the family settles for bed that night, they are ambushed by four figures who look exactly like them. These doppelgangers (Red[Adelaide], Abraham [Gabe], Umbrae [Zora], and Pluto [Jason]) are The Tethered: part of a society of “clones” who have been waiting in the tunnels of a forgotten underground substation that connects across America. The Tethered’s intentions are chillingly cryptic, yet obviously deadly. But the Wilsons’ nightmare is only just beginning.
The Break Down
When Jordan Peele shadily tweeted out that Us was a horror movie, which was mainly aimed at the asshats in the back who dubbed Get Out a “comedy” during last year’s award season, the man said what he meant and meant what he said. While a lot of the scenes in Us did little to make me peep through my fingers as the carnage transpired onscreen, the hairs on my body still stirred in fear. The machinations of The Tethered were unfamiliar and unpredictable. You simply didn’t know when they would pop up. You didn’t know if they could attack anyone other than their… well, other. You simply just didn’t know their endgame, and that, fellow horror fans, is where true terror lies. And this fact is another defining instance proving that Peele knows his shit.
Casting is another one of Peele’s strong assets, and snagging both Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke following their roles in Black Panther was a true boss move. Nyong’o embodied both roles of Adelaide and Red with such ease and familiarity, especially Adelaide, who reminded me of so many black women I’ve known throughout my life. Red, on the other hand, has earned a spot in the modern horror hall of fame with the likes of Pennywise, Samara, and Ghostface. Hell, I’d even place Red (and the Tethered) with the likes of Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers, because of their ripe originality and equally unique mythology. Duke’s Gabe was the quintessential American Dream “dad.” He had an 80’s materialistic edge about him, always thinking that the best devices and possessions will make life a lot easier. In some respects he was right, because without his prized boat of his, the Wilsons’ would’ve been in an even bigger shit storm. The Wilson kids, Zora and Jason (played by Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex, respectively) avoided the annoying child syndrome that plagues most horror movies (although Jason had his moments), taking down some of the Tethered with enough common sense that most final girls lack. Jason’s connection to Adelaide is worth some praise as well. Initially, their connection seemed like a healthy symbiosis between mother and son – especially when Adelaide showed her ferocious side in killing a few of the Tethered and, finally, Red. But then the twist happened, and shit got even deeper between the two of them.
Photo Credit: Universal/Blumhouse/Monkeypaw Productions
Personally, I champion seeing black boys being more than what’s expected of them: overtly tough and constantly hardened to life as we know it even when they don’t have to be. In recent years, this trend has been challenged not only theatrically, but in literature and television as well, and Jason is just one of the growing number of black boys being celebrated for just being themselves, and encouraging other black boys out there to do the same.
And finally, we have the Tethered. There’s so much that can be uncovered with these doppelgangers that it would take infinity to fully unravel what Peele has placed in front of us. As stated before, the less we know about The Tethered, the more unnerving their existence becomes. The fact that Peele didn’t throw all the breadcrumbs at us when explaining them is akin to Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds never explained why the birds decided to attack the human populace out of the blue (and neither did Daphne du Maurier’s original short story). The Wilsons reacted, in my opinion, appropriately to a home invasion situation like no other. They didn’t decide to solve their problem by trying to learn their enemies background or origin story (although Adelaide knew what was happening). They chose to survive the horrific variables placed in front of them. This is easily rooted in how most black people handle situations, which can be seen as the Wilsons nonchalantly rested at the Tylers’ residence, eating some of the food left over while being surrounded by the blood and remains of their deceased friends. Seeing trauma on a daily basis numbs you to the point where the important variable is not the why this is happening, but the how we can survive.
Now let me switch lanes on you…
Once the credits started to crawl at my viewing of Us, you could practically feel the stunned silence of the audience. No one moved for a brief moment. Then suddenly someone stormed for the exit, yelling as the walked out the screening room, “That got 100% on Rotten Tomatoes?! HOW?!?!?”
And at that moment, I knew that Peele had another winner on his hands.
I say that because when the first trailer for Us dropped on Christmas Day, I saw a barrage of articles, Twitter threads, blog posts, all claiming to pick up on the various racial and political nuances strewn throughout the minute and half preview alone. Theories for Us were being shared by the nanosecond to the point that in the rush to capitalize off it’s momentous buzz via reshares and likes, these theorists missed the few interviews with Peele himself warning moviegoers that his second outing was nothing like Get Out.
“Very important for me was to have a black family at the center of a horror film. But it’s also important to note, unlike Get Out, Us is not about race. It is instead about something that I feel has become an undeniable truth. And that is the simple fact that we are our own worst enemies.” – Peele via The Hollywood Reporter
The latter part of this quote may have went over the heads of several people, including the lady balking at the high RT score Us achieved as she walked out the theater Thursday night. But this is where Us actually wins. Why? Because it’s a horror movie through and through with black faces facing a ghastly unknown terror who literally has their face and their bodies sans their souls. Using something as terrifying as that as a base, Peele added layers that actually transcended race this go round (but not fully), forcing the viewer to look at themselves as American citizens. The Tethered were not a global phenomenon, but were solely an American creation, which coincides with the film’s double entendre title and Red’s equally chilling answer when Gabe asks who they are:
“We’re Americans…” – Red
It goes without saying that the United States has become a complete shitshow in recent years. By daring us to pick up a mirror, Peele is challenging us to take note that sometimes the political and societal horrors injected into the world every nanosecond is by our own hands, which is an especially hard pill to swallow for an increasingly narcissistic society. This may lead to some debate among fans, who may cling to the racial aspect of the film, or to some who may simply label Us as a mishmash of nonsense that failed to deliver the same biting commentary that Get Out did. This is not Peele’s problem, nor should it be.
Photo Credit: Universal/Blumhouse/Monkeypaw Productions
However, that doesn’t mean race is absent in Us. It’s just not the driving force of the story. One of the examples where race, in my opinion, comes into play is where instead of being the best friends to a group of white protagonists, or the helpful Samaritans who just so happened to be in the area and end up helping said white protagonists, Us focused on a black family living the American Dream trying to survive an American nightmare. While watching the scene where the Tylers were dispatched by their Tethered counterparts, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the scene in the last Wolverine film Logan, where X-24 gruesomely slaughters the black family who invited Logan and crew into their home. The roles had been reversed for once in Us, and, as a black man, it was gratifying to see that we weren’t killed off unceremoniously after our purpose was served. Our faces were the leads/protagonists, and not the sacrificial lambs. The racial aspect, for me, is that the Wilsons were dealing with this horror headfirst instead of being hapless causalities to it.
Verdict
With Us, Jordan Peele set out to make a horror film that happened to have a skewering commentary on today’s society, all facets of it. It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before in past horror films (Romero’s ‘Dead’ Saga, Child’s Play, Halloween, etc), because that’s what horror does best: use metaphorical monsters to tackle the societal ills that plague humanity generation after generation. However Peele adds another fresh filter to this ongoing narrative, making his mark to stand among those greats with his own take on the American Dream and its ugly shadow that will forever be tethered until the end of time. Us is a movie that should be seen again and again, because each viewing will birth more conversations for years to come.
Now we just have to wait for Peele’s next horrifc chapter in the horror cannon, just as the Tethered waited for their time on the surface…
Photo Credit: Universal/Blumhouse/Monkeypaw Productions