Us review round-up: Jordan Peele's new horror film is 'way more Twilight Zone-y than Get Out'

Us, Jordan Peele’s highly-anticipated follow-up to his 2017 horror-fare Get Out, had its world premiere  at South by Southwest 2019 on 8 March and the early reviews have started rolling in. Starring Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke Shahadi, Wright-Joseph and Evan Alex, Us has received mostly positive feedback from the critics. [caption id=“attachment_6231821” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A still from Us[/caption] The plot of the film follows a family of four, who visit their beachfront home for a getaway but their merrymaking is cut short when four masked strangers descend upon the house. When the masks come off, they are revealed to be doppelgangers of the family. Jason Blum returns for a second time as a producer, after producing Peele’s Oscar-winning directorial debut. Here’s what critics have been saying about the film Collider_:_ “The premise (of Us) is way more Twilight Zone-y than Get Out, but it does have a few key things in common (with Get Out). For one, Peele proves that he’s as sharp as ever when it comes to throwing in some subtext under his fun horror movie. In this case he’s asking us to look at our own evils, not some “other.” The villainy on display here isn’t a mask-wearing psycho or a pissed off ghost or a finger-knived dream demon. It’s you.” IndieWire:  “It (Us) unfolds as a satisfying dose of relentless, anxiety-inducing survival antics designed to keep viewers perpetually uneasy, and moves so quickly that they can only consider the deeper undercurrents after the credits roll…Think Funny Games collided with Cronenbergian body horror and Hitchockian suspense, and you’re maybe halfway there.” Variety:  “Like the “sunken place” Peele invented for Get Out, this sinister domain offers a visual allegory for the darker aspects of our own socialization — which, if the film were more successful in its final stretch, would force us to confront the monsters within each of us.” The Hollywood Reporter: “Perhaps Us is making the obvious point that, whether we’re black or white, it’s people who look just like us who’ve made our world a disaster we cannot escape. Maybe we’re doing the same, both of us creating a living hell for someone, likely without even knowing it. Maybe we’re Them and they’re Us.” AV Club: “Us scores its most effective scares not from a stab or a shriek, but from the near-imperceptible, the nightmare lurking in the shadows…As he did in Get Out, Peele displays an incredible talent for suggestion, introducing gags, objects, and behaviors that pay off in ways both cathartic and gruesome.” The Verge: “The new movie isn’t as unconventional as Get Out, or crafted with the same kind of watchmaker’s attention to how every tiny gear fits together. But it’s striking and unsettling, the kind of horror movie designed to make audiences walk away feeling leery about ordinary things around them, from shadows at night to mirrors to rabbits to scissors.” The Daily Beast: " There will be plenty of thinking and dissecting of Us, and it deserves it. But it’s interesting that it succeeds so well as a great thriller on its own, divorced from any of the “importance” that will be assigned to it." Polygon: “Every ounce of Us is a choice that speaks to the bigger picture, and Peele isn’t afraid of the grotesque; finally, a movie splatters blood across a pristine, white Alexa.” Den of Geek:" A massive effort that far exceeds its humble home invasion conceit, Peele’s sophomore effort holds as many secrets as the families it follows on both sides of the looking glass."