Double the horror, triple the fun.

At this point, Jordan Peele and the horror genre feel tethered together on a level many will never comprehend. We may have been blissfully unaware before Get Out came along but now the cat’s out of the bag - Jordan Peele and horror are simply inseparable.

While horror had been in rude health for quite some time, it was with the release of Peele’s Get Out in 2017 that things really started cooking. The film was a game changer not only for its blistering commentary on a very modern form of racism, but for what it did to change the hearts and minds of those who’d previously looked down on the genre. Horror always had a political edge to it but Get Out contained one so sharp the whole world felt the cut.

Since that moment, both genre and director have gone from strength to strength, with Peele’s star ascending faster than many of us can keep up with. Thankfully though, the filmmaker has not abandoned his roots and felt tempted away by the alluring gaze of the huge franchises out there, as Us finds Jordan Peele very much back in the horror game and as fiercely acerbic as ever.

Haunted by unresolved childhood trauma, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) spends every minute in fear of her doppelgänger. In a bid to get away from things, Adelaide, husband Gabe (Winston Duke), and their two children take a trip to Santa Cruz, but her paranoia is compounded when she returns to the beach where she first encountered her mysterious double. As night falls back at their holiday home, the Wilson family are stalked by these shadowy lookalikes and, with things spiralling, it’s clear that these horrific duplicates will stop at nothing to destroy them. But is everything truly as it seems?

As one of the hottest tickets in Hollywood, Jordan Peele has a lot going for him right now, yet under it all beats the heart of a true cinephile and an ardent student of horror. Not only can you see the influence of the entire genre through his relatively short directorial career, but the way it informs his entire approach as a filmmaker is positively infectious.

Proudly wearing his influences on his sleeve, Get Out was like a blistering love letter to everything from The Stepford Wives to The Shining and that affection for the genre bleeds through beautifully into Us. Peele’s adoration for horror is out there for all to see and, for now at least, it clearly makes him tick, as Us grabs our hand to pull us even further down his twisted rabbit hole.

Completely comfortable calling back to genre landmarks like Dawn of the Dead and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Us is stuffed full of wonderfully horror-literate moments that, while imbuing the film with a timeless, classic feel, also appear utterly fresh. It’s a well-earned balance that goes way beyond cheap reference, as Peele intelligently layers instantly recognisable motifs and plot points on top of a thoroughly modern take on the genre.

In lesser hands, there’s every chance we’d be witnessing a tired rehash of every horror cliché going, yet with Jordan Peele behind the wheel, Us offers up a whip-smart dissection of both its genre and society at large. Like Get Out before it, Us is a densely layered tale that will be part of a larger conversation for many years to come; yet, in many ways, its scope is a far broader, and far more abstract, beast.

While Get Out was fiercely single-minded in its approach, Us is a far larger and far more densely populated prospect. There’s a hell of a lot thrown into the Us mix, much of which will take some time to unravel, yet that’s half the fun of a Jordan Peele movie, isn’t it?

Within Peele’s crowded horror smorgasbord, Us takes in numerous subjects from identity and humanity’s inherent violence, to wealth and the class system, to U.S. society as an ugly whole. It’s an absolutely exhausting mix of subject matter to digest but, while not everything lands, the end result is a heady blend of subtext that will slowly crawl under your skin to offer something a little more unnerving and nuanced than your average horror flick. 

As cerebral as they come, Us will no doubt split audiences with its unconventional, off-kilter approach. Of course, there’s the odd jump scare here and there, and the film’s visceral, often ultraviolent style is up there with the very best in the horror game, yet the immediacy of these moments is balanced wonderfully by a slow, creeping dread that can’t be easily identified or shaken off.

Plot is of course crucial to any horror, as a film’s narrative mechanics are often what drive the scares, but it’s clear from the outset that Us is perhaps more concerned with its themes than the nitty-gritty of how to arrive at them. Ultimately, while Us is far more than its plot, there are one or two unavoidable issues with the narrative that stop it marginally short of greatness. 

On the surface, the plot works just fine, yet occasionally feels like a feature-length Twilight Zone episode that’s been stretched out just a bit too far. As the internal logic of the film’s doppelgänger narrative begins to falter under close scrutiny, the plot holes begin to mount up, with several head scratching moments that leave you a little unsatisfied.

Outside of this occasional lapse in logic, however, Jordan Peele’s writing is of the very highest standard, as Us intricately weaves in a multitude of themes, while studiously developing its characters and ensuring its horror beats land with deadly precision. The pacing is a little uneven at times, yet this is mere nit-picking, as Peele’s ability to balance humour, heart, and horror without breaking sweat shines through in every scene.

Whether it’s a musical cue or a visual gag in amongst the violence, Us knows just when to drop a little humour into the pot to completely knock you out of your comfort zone. Some of the very best horrors have had a wicked sense of comic timing about them and Peele clearly knows what he’s doing here, as a delicate balance that’d topple a lesser director becomes something quite special in his hands. 

Both audibly and visually, Us constructs a language unto itself. Full of dark, discordant pizzicato strings, sinister moments of silence, splashes of demonic opera, and a deliciously twisted version of ‘I Got 5 On It’ by Luniz; not only does Us’ wonderfully off-kilter score feel thoroughly unnerving in all the right ways but, tether it all to the film’s visuals, and you have something that will gnaw away at you long after you’ve left the cinema.

The look and movements of the doppelgängers are simple but effective, as their vacant stares and unpredictable actions give a real air of uncertainty to everything, while motifs like the red jumpsuits, handholding, and the golden scissors gives Us a truly distinct quality. As ever with a Jordan Peele film, these elements aren’t just lobbed in there to look good. Everything has a meaning and taking the time to delve deep into the symbolism of it all is just a part of the Peele game. 

What marks Us out from the horror crowd, however, is its dedication to its core characters and in the Wilson family, the film has a completely believable and utterly relatable heart to it. Set up neither as the perfect family, nor a bunch of cannon fodder morons you’re more than happy to see get picked off one by one, we’re with both the parents and the kids until the bitter end.

Of course, it helps to have someone like Lupita Nyong’o as your lead and, while Winston Duke is fantastic alongside her, offering a great source of levity, she absolutely steals the show in a gruelling, blood and guts dual role. Her performance as the traumatised Adelaide is perfectly pitched, as we simultaneously sympathise with her, while growing horrified at her increasingly brutal actions. Yet it’s as her double, Red, where Nyong’o really gets to shake off those handcuffs.

Menacing, deeply disturbing, but somehow sympathetic, Red is a classic horror creation and an antagonist that will crawl into your nightmares and stay there for quite some time after viewing. It’s a role that could easily have come across as jokey, yet Nyong’o works it to horrifying perfection as she throws herself into the performance both physically and mentally. If there’s not even a sniff of recognition come awards season, we might as well all go home.

Utterly distinctive and astonishingly unique, Us is a sophomore effort from Jordan Peele that may not have the single-minded ferocity of Get Out, yet its ambition to bring so much to the table is undoubtedly impressive. It’s not an easy film to process by any stretch but, while the mechanics are a little creaky at times, you’ll find it slowly but surely crawling under your skin to leave you thoroughly disturbed and deep in thought for some time after. As a self-confessed student of horror, Peele brazenly references many masterpieces of the genre but, while there’s a distinctly classic feel to Us, the director threads it all with a thoroughly modern sensibility. Some directors feel genetically engineered for a specific genre and, while his body of comedy work is all well and good, if Jordan Peele can stay tethered to horror for at least a little while longer, the world will be a far better place for it.