Us

The second film. It's always a tough one to get right no matter who the director is. It's even tougher when your debut was a stunner. One deservedly praised to the sky. A best picture nominee. It's always going to be a struggle to live up to it. Jordan Peele's second film is 'Us'. It doesn't come near 'Get Out' but it's a fine attempt.

Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o) and her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) are off to Santa Cruz with their kids for a family holiday. Adelaide is stressed about the trip but her husband can't figure out why. On a trip to the beach to meet friends their son Jason wanders away from them which freaks the parents out. He's found and a crisis is averted but later that night a strange family approaches their holiday home and they realise that the nightmare is only beginning when they notice that the intruders look fierce familiar.

America in 2019 is a strange and scary place. It's only fitting that the films coming out of it feel the same. Us is unsettling stuff. A surreal, confusing, terrifying watch that's leaden down with metaphor and meaning. It's a film that demands you pay attention to it as every line has meaning and every scene is part of a bigger puzzle that only really makes sense come the end. It's a film about privilege, those who have it and those who don't. It's about the dangers of being materialistic and trying to keep up with Jones. It's also about the disastrous cost of keeping your head in the sand. Of knowing your world is about to get fucked up but hiding behind a mask anyway. It's about now. We're all guilty of it. We know what the future has in store for us and the generations coming and we don't care. The film is one big finger pointing at us.

Yet with all it's meaning it still manages to feel like a slight disappointment. It's ridiculous. It shouldn't. It's because you just can't help comparing it to the perfection that was 'Get Out'. No no I'm being silly, ignore me. Us is a perfectly fine horror movie. It's scary as hell in some places. You'll gasp. You'll hide behind your fingers in dread when you hear the creepiest voice of the year pouring out of a mouth that doesn't belong to it. Your jaw will drop during a sudden massacre that's scored by both the Beach Boys and N.W.A (Two Californian bands, but both from very different backgrounds, the have's and the have not's, everything has meaning.) Director Jordan Peele is known primarily as a comedian but man alive he knows his horror and packs the film with knowing nods. A glimpse of the 80's horror C.H.U.D. on a VHS shelve early in the movie gives a little hint as to it's direction and we get nods to some of the greats too like Jaws, The Lost Boys and Invasion of The Body Snatchers. There's loads in here to make the geekier of us grin with glee.

But annoyingly, for all his cleverness he still falls into the trope traps so commonly seen in horrors. Character's doing stupid things like going off on their own into the darkness or facing the enemy head on with no back up. Stop it ye dopes, that never ends well. These were cliches 30 years ago in terrible slasher movies but at least this time it's character's we give a shit about in trouble. Peele is smart enough to give us leads we want to see survive. Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke are both superb in the lead roles. Her, troubled and terrified but fierce, him worried and stressed but still funny. Nyong'o steals the movie though, without going into too much detail, when she seems to be everywhere at once. The woman has range, there's no denying it.

For Peele's next movie I'd love to see him make a straight horror movie. To move away from his comedy safety net. He has the chops to do it and he has the imagination for it. Some of the moments of comedy here felt crowbarred in and took away from the tension to the film's detriment. They aren't needed at all. Other than that it's a very solid watch packed with ideas and depth. There's far more here to chew on than the usual horror fodder clogging up multiplex's and for that we should be grateful.