Rethinking Horror

Jordan Peele’s movies belong to a class of horror films that invite analytical interpretations; part of seeing them includes, for better or for worse, mulling over what they mean. 

“Get Out” was hailed as a masterpiece horror debut in 2017, praised for how it literalized white fetishization of and obsession with black bodies and culture. Often a send-up of white liberal self-satisfaction, it played with tropes in chilling, brilliant ways. “Get Out” was less a puzzle and more of an Easter egg hunt, weaving in visuals and symbols that stood out immediately to those well-versed in American history. 

The villians in“Us” are less obvious. A comfortably middle class black family goes on a trip to Santa Monica, making the mother, Adelaide, (Lupita Nyong’o) anxious; when she was little, she had a traumatic experience in a house of mirrors on that beach. Her experience opens the film like a prologue, but we only see the first part of it. When she expresses her anxiety to her husband, noting that she’s felt an increasing sense of foreboding ever since, he brushes it off, until the power goes out. The family looks outside to see four figures who resemble them in red jumpsuits holding hands, silhouetted against the light of the driveway.

The next portion of the film, in which each family member battles his or her doppelganger, is tightly paced and suspenseful. Everything is clearly thought out, from the point of view shots to the score of a subsequent bloodbath in a neighboring family’s house. Adelaide’s doppelganger, Red, explains in a raspy, unused voice, why they, the Tethered, are there, but much of what she says does not become clear to the viewer until the end. 

Overall, “Us” is clever, though perhaps slightly less conceptually cohesive than “Get Out.” While the main takeaways from the latter were pretty clear, the messages that viewers are left with as the credits roll after “Us” are less so. The distinction between the haves and the have-nots is unmistakable. Adelaide and her family behave like people who never wanted, materially, for anything: her husband has glasses while his double clearly has vision problems, and Adelaide moves like a trained dancer, while her doppelganger’s assassin-like fluidity stems from developing survival instincts. The easiness with which Adelaide’s family begins to adapt to injuring their counterparts becomes more striking as the movie goes on, inviting a consideration of a characteristic often taken for granted in horror films. And the twists at the end, which require reflecting on everything you think you know about the women whose relationship is at the crux of the plot, stir up questions about trauma. the life we build for ourselves after it — and what it takes to get there.

Days after seeing it, I still find myself mulling over small details, including the colors of the film. Red has never been neutral and it seems to be slowly assuming a weightier role in pop culture. The red suits that the Tethereds wear feel eerily reminiscent of the robes of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the novel made newly popular by the TV adaptation, or a certain type of red baseball cap. Seeing large congregations of any of those groups is only scary if you’re not a part of them. Among other questions, the ending of “Us” invites you to ask yourself, how long does it take for us to become comfortable in a new reality, doing what we think we need to do in order to survive?

“Us” is playing widely.