Review of Us (2019) by Cdougall — 18 Aug 2021

Us is yet another inventive and interesting horror film from Jordan Peele, although for me it’s not quite as good as Get Out was. Us is a more complex movie than Get Out was and you really have to watch to the end to fully understand why everything that happens in the movie happens.

The end explains everything nicely and has a twist that caught me off guard and made the entire film a lot more interesting and gives you a lot to think about as the credits roll. There is a shot at the end that I don’t like too much, but other than that everything works really well.

The core concept of the movie is slightly cliched but the way Peele executes it and plays off of it is really good and makes the movie engaging for its full runtime. In other words, the directing is really good just like it was in Get Out.

The actors are great in their roles and perfectly capture how a family would feel and react in the situation that they’re put in in this movie. The horror is a bit more conventional than what we got in Get Out, and that works to the benefit of this movie due to its premise.

Us uses camera positioning really nicely to give you goosebumps at times and an interesting kind of anxiety at others even when there’s nothing terrifying on the screen. This movie makes people standing next to each other holding hands seem really freaky, especially when they have the costumes that they do in this movie.

The dialogue is unnerving at times, especially in the way that the actors deliver some of their lines, and the behavior of some of the characters is weird in a creepy way, which again the actors amplify with their performances.

Overall the film flows pretty smoothly, although it goes a bit off the rails for me when we get the bigger picture of the movie and it goes beyond the primary family. I might’ve liked this movie a little better if it had stuck to a smaller scale and focused exclusively on the main family, but I can see why Peele took Us in the direction that he did and I think he did a pretty good job with that direction.

This direction makes Us a unique horror flick and establishes Peele as a creative force in the horror genre. Overall, Us is an engaging and effective film and is another solid product from Peele, although it doesn’t quite reach the heights of Get Out.