'Us', a perfect new addition to my favourite genre.

There were a lot of people out there disappointed with the much anticipated, Oscar winning Get Out from Jordan Peele. I wasn't disappointed, per se, but it also didn't live up to the hype. Consequently, when Us was announced I was, I was relatively nonplussed, but safe to say my faith is restored in Peele's ability to entertain and terrify. 

Us begins with a young Adelaide at the Santa Cruz pier fair with her parents. Unimpressed by both of them, she wanders off and experiences a trauma which haunts her for the rest of her life. A few years/ a credit-sequence later and Adelaide, played by the wonderfully talented Lupita Nyong'o, is married with two teenage kids. They have returned to their summer lake house and there is nothing she wants to do less than return to that beach. What ensues is then a bizarre, confusing, but wonderfully crafted sequence of events that has left me puzzled over a week later.

One of the best things about the film is its use of comedy. In the style of the comedy / horror classic Scream, Us exploits tropes of horror by replacing what would be screams with comedic quips from the characters involved. Gabe, played by Winston Duke, is particularly good at this. The moment when the perpetrators of violence arrive, for example, would usually be an image that stopped me turning my light off at night. Instead, I just remember Gabe's brilliant reaction, and the absurdity of the situation, and the nature of horror, is highlighted through this deeply self-reflexive moment of cinema. 

Overall the women of the film steal the show though, particularly Nyong'o and her friend Kitty, played by Elisabeth Moss. The reasons I was attracted to horror when I first fell in love with it were 1. morbid curiosity and 2. the trope of the badass female lead. The screaming, bare breasted blondes of the sixties turned into kickass female heroines in the nineties, and Us continues this theme. Moss's character does not fit into this category, being more of a comedic part, but every time Nyong'o came on the screen I just wanted to kick a man in the balls. She was fearless throughout, and my favourite scene was an epic stand off at the end featuring Nyong'o and her nemesis. 

On top of all this the film has a banging soundtrack and takes you on a terrifying ride to an eerie yet cathartic finish. I want to go see this again and again, and I can't wait to see what Peele has in store for us next. I'll go in next time without a single doubt at all.