PLOT: While on holiday at their beach house, the Wilson family finds themselves stalked by a group of evil strangers that look just like them.
REVIEW: When a new director makes as big of a splash out of the gate as Jordan Peele, who won universal acclaim, boffo box office and an Oscar for GET OUT, their follow-up is bound to come out with some pretty high expectations. Following its world premiere at SXSW, critics called US a new horror classic, with some even using the word “masterpiece” in their reviews. While one should always take that kind of praise with a grain of salt (a movie needs to survive the test of time to really be called a masterpiece), there’s no doubt US is an extremely accomplished follow-up for Peele, who’s proven himself to be the real deal as far as genre is concerned.
The fact is, Peele could have easily made GET OUT 2 and raked-in millions, but instead took a stab at something a lot more ambitious. A fan of “The Twilight Zone” (to the extent that his TV reboot of the series premieres on CBS All Access next month), Peele’s made a disturbing American allegory with his latest, a cerebral thriller that does its own thing by eschewing the trappings of “art-house horror” but also is remarkably disciplined as far as the actual terror goes, meaning no cheap “jump” scares, while gore is used sparingly.
Peele allows the tension to build up slowly, using a prelude set in 1986 to sow the seeds for what’s to come later. Here we meet Lupita Nyong’o’s Adelaide as a child (look for AQUAMAN’s Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as her dad) where something creepy happens to her on the boardwalk that, although we don’t know exactly what it is, has left enough of a scar that she’s immediately ill at ease returning to the location thirty two years later with her family.
Before diving into the horror, Peele allows us time to get to know this family, with Nyong’o the over-protective mom to her sporty, smart daughter (the fantastic Shahadi Wright Joseph) and more sheltered son (Evan Alex). Winston Duke, in a role that’s far removed from M’Baku in the MCU, is her nerdy, likable husband, who’s eager to have some summer fun with his family and hang out with the perpetually drunk, yuppie family (Tim Heidecker and Elisabeth Moss) that lives down the road.
The casting is spot-on, with the Wilson’s being an eminently likable family. Once the horror kicks in, and they meet their silent doppelgängers, knowns as “The Tethered”, the amazing acting really becomes apparent, with each having to simultaneously play vulnerable (as the Wilson's) and menacing (as The Tethered), with Duke, in particular, being night and day in the roles. Most importantly, you like the family and want them to survive their encounter with The Tethered, which is the most important thing in a movie like this.
For the first two-thirds of the running time, US is a rock-solid horror-thriller, albeit one that seems deceptively simple and seemed to be wrapping up kind of early all things considered. It’s here that Peele throws a curve-ball at the audience, with a divisive third act that will either have you think you’re watching a stone-cold classic or throw you off with its ambition.
In a perfect world, I would have been able to see US twice before passing judgement on it in a review, but that's not gonna happen. As a result, I’m left with slightly mixed feelings about it, although I have to say I was thoroughly entertained throughout. More importantly, I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I saw it, and this may well be the kind of movie that people gradually come around to if it leaves them with mixed feelings (not unlike one of Peele’s admitted major influences, THE SHINING). Whatever the case, Peele is (thankfully) here to stay, and among the most exciting filmmakers working in genre today, making this a must-see.