Us (Film Review)

2019 Universal Pictures
Written and Directed by: Jordan Peele
Starring: Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker
MPAA Rating: R; Running Time: 116 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 5/10

Leading up to his sophomore writing and directorial effort, Jordan Peele announced that this second film would focus more on horror. Holy soiled drawers, does it. Us, following two years after Peele's debut, Get Out, features an opening hour so horrifying, you'll be waking up at 3 am to check your locks for weeks.
It's clear Peele has not only been influenced by horror cinema's masters, but been nursing frightening mise en scène in his brain for years. Get Out, more of a comedic social satire with horrific elements, certainly had its scary moments, but Us drills into horror like it wants to give you a heart attack.
A distant thunderhead might as well be the harbinger of the apocalypse.
A group of strangers silhouetted at the end of a driveway might as well be standing at the foot of the viewer's own bed.
This movie somehow makes Luniz'"I Got 5 On It" into the devil's marching tune.
I felt genuinely unsettled, and coming from a horror aficionado who generally laughs when a movie is genuinely scary, not out of nervousness, but appreciation, that's saying a lot. I'm still nervously looking out the window.
Us begins in the mid-80's, when little Adelaide has wandered off a night time, carnivalesque Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, into a spooky house of mirrors. The power goes out, and a rattled Adelaide panics, only to see a mirror image of herself that's not so much a reflection, and more a terrifying facsimile of her that smiles and scars Adelaide for the rest of her life.
Flash forward to the present, and Adelaide, now Adelaide Wilson, has got a family of her own. The Wilson's are going on a vacation...to Santa Cruz.
Coming back dredges up hat horrible memory, and an unsettled Adelaide becomes tense and distant. Her husband, trying to keep up with the Jones', cares way more about his dingy new boat then Adelaide's feelings. Meanwhile, Adelaide doesn't want to let the kids out of her sight. One night, four individuals show up outside the family's vacation house. They want to come inside.
As I've said, the first hour of this film is one of the most unsettling hours ever put on screen. Peele, in just two films, has got this horror thing down to a science. I hope he continues to explore the genre with aplomb. However, the second hour leaves the tightly constructed realm of the first, for a less moody, more thriller vibe. Then, the nature of the villains is explored...and let us just say, the story doesn't quite hold together.
There are some rather well thought out themes here revolving around class and privilege. Us offers a lot to think about. Just don't think about the plot. Don't think about what all of the rabbits have been subsisting on all these years. Don't think about why REDACTEDS were just left down there in those tunnels all this time. Don't think about why they were never discovered. Don't think about any of that stuff because then the whole structure of the film, even a neat late twist, falls apart. Get Out had its cake in the form of its satire, comedy, and horror, but then it ate it in the form of a satisfying story. Sorry, I had to make that lousy metaphor, but I'm even sorrier I have to take it to another level:
Us has its cake, even more gloriously decorated than Get Out's...but when it comes time to eat...
Us chokes.