Us: There’s a Family in Our Driveway

With his sophomore film, Jordan Peele has proven that he deserves to be listed among the “Masters of Horror.” As Us gives us a chilling tale of what happens when a family is attacked by… themselves.

Us may not be the goriest or even that scary in a traditional fashion but where it excels is in making your mind a terrifying place to be. The more I think about this film, the creepier it gets and while watching I had an endless sense of discomfort. Every time there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel something in the film would quickly bring back the uneasy feeling and push me back to the edge of my seat, anticipating what comes next.

The only real negative I could find with the film was the lack of answers. We never get a how or why for many of the events of the film but I also feel the audience was intentionally left in the dark, adding to the tension and discomfort of the film.

I feel this film is something new and different for the horror genre by relying less on on jump scares and bloody imagery (tho, there is still plenty of that) and instead taking a more psychological approach by preying on people’s fear of the unknown. Another element of the film that deserves to be noted is the brilliance of the foreshadowing used; in a seemingly innocent scene at the very start of the film many of the major plot points are hinted at in easy to overlook details.

The drama and tension was only made more real by the outstanding performances given by the entire cast; all of whom played both a member of an average family as well as their own wicked dopplegänger. Each actor and actress did a brilliant job going from playing a member of the highly-relatable family, conveying the love and dysfunction one would expect from a real life family, to playing their wicked duplicates as truly sinister and malicious.

While I do feel that this film could possibly be improved by a sequel (or even prequel) to flesh out some of the lose threads and unexplained plot points, I believe it excelled at doing what I feel a horror film should, making the audience uneasy and nervous.