Us is a second feature from Jordan Peele after his marvellous debut Get Out, which was more brilliantly satirical than scary and may well be the best ever horror film for non-horror people (i.e. me). Us has also garnered five stars everywhere, as well as, at the time of writing, a 100 per cent rating on the aggregate review site Rotten Tomatoes, so I’m out of step, I know, but I found it disappointing. The second act is essentially a zombie-style, home-invasion splatterfest that goes on and on and on. Allusions that you think will pay off don’t. It’s ultimately baffling and although I’m fine with baffling as a rule, if I’m going to sit through a zombie-style splatterfest it would have to be for a good reason.
The opening is terrific. After titles that tell us that there are many tunnels underground in America, we see a small girl wandering away from her parents at Santa Cruz’s beachfront fairground into a hall of mirrors where she appears to meet her exact double. Later flashbacks will show us that this event was so traumatic she was even mute for a period. But, for now, we spool forward in time to meet the Wilson family on the way to their Santa Cruz summer cabin. There’s the mother Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), father Gabe (Winston Duke), and two kids (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex), and the connection is Adelaide, who was that little girl, and is now reluctant to return to that beach. As the cabin has been in the family ever since her parents’ time, at least, and the Wilsons holiday there annually, you do wonder why this reluctance hasn’t made itself known before, but we’ll leave that there because I know that when I point these things out it’s dreary and gets on fans’ nerves and it shouldn’t matter.
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