Us (2019)

Us (2019)
Written By: Karla Cortes
Edited By: Grave Reviews Staff

Film Information

Director:​ Jordan Peele
Producers:  Jason Blum, Ian Cooper, Jordan Peele, Sean McKittrick
Writers: Jordan Peele
Music:  Michael Abels
Date Released: March 22, 2019

Cast:
Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson
Madison Curry as Young Adelaide
Winston Duke as Gabriel “Gabe” Wilson
Shahadi Wright Joseph as Zora Wilson
Evan Alex as Jason Wilson
Elisabeth Moss as Kitty Tyler
Tim Heidecker as Josh Tyler

Rating = 3/5 Graves

Synopsis

At a young age, Adelaide Wilson faced a traumatic experience during a family vacation at the shore which she carried with her all her life. Now grown up, she returns to the same spot with her two children Zora and Jason, as well as her husband Gabe. After strange alignments and coincidences begin to happen, Adelaide fears that her traumatic past is inching closer to her and her family. One night, while the Wilson’s are getting ready for bed at their shore house, a family exactly identical to them arrives at their doorstep to wreak havoc with the intention of killing the Wilson family. As they fight to survive, the family soon realizes that they aren’t the only ones facing their doppelgangers, but the whole world as well.

Gore Factor

There is a fair share of gore in the film. Although there are few gore scenes, blood splatters is incorporated into climatic moments. From throat slitting to being burned alive, Us offers a perfect balance between jump scares and gore.

The Grave Review

As for the cinematography aspect of the film Us, Peele deserves much credit for perfectly capturing fear through well done stills and zoom-ins. For Example, when young Adelaide turns around and finds her doppelganger, her expression sets the tone of the scene. Another example is when the doppelganger family is standing perfectly still in the drive-way and instills a sense of high tension with the viewers. The film’s horror is not centered around jump scares or gore, but more so around eerie behavior, strange occurrences, and uncomfortable concepts to wrap the audience’s head around.

Although the film brought a new concept to the table within horror and thrillers by having doppelgangers kill their clones and take over the world, the film had a few holes that deterred from enjoying the film. The ending was predictable from watching the first few scenes of the film. To begin with, Peele incorporated much of his comedic personality into the film which may have taken away from the overall theme of the film. As such, it felt as if the amount of jokes and puns disrupted the “scariness” element of the film.

Aside from this, the film presented a concept that is hard to accept which was that every single person in the entire world had a clone living underneath them. This is way too far of a reach to grasp and even took away from the film since it didn’t make sense. Lastly, Peele incorporated different messages and hidden meanings into the film without much subtlety. The Jeremiah 11:11, which is a biblical verse summarily refers to an evil presence in some manner and is incorporated into the film on multiple occasion. Many viewers have interpreted what this message may mean. But, Peele does not generally hide his messages in his films. One theme that seemed apparent in Us (2019) is the underlying message of the division of classes within the United States. Peele even mentions many times that the film was supposed to highlight class division, racism, and sexism. The concept of Us (2019) is phenomenal, but the execution was subpar to what it could have been.

For the following reasons, Grave Reviews gives Us (2019) three out of five graves.

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