Us (2019)

Another Monkeypaw Production already. I didn't set out to do this; it was simply the next horror I found on Netflix. And it got a somewhat better reception.

Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong'o, getting top billing for the first time I've seen) is reluctant to go with husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their children, teen Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph) and preteen Jason (Evan Alex), on vacation to Santa Cruz, because that's where she developed childhood PTSD from an encounter with an identical girl. Her anxiety increases as she notices coincidences. Gabe doesn't take any of this seriously until around the midpoint, when doubles of the entire family show up -- with murderous intentions.

Short summary, but that's more than I ever gleaned before. I can see why people have been cagey about discussing the story. This is one of those horrors that thrive on leaving questions unanswered, kinda like The Babadook, which director Jordan Peele did insist that the cast watch for inspiration.

If you don't want more details now, skip this paragraph. The doppelgangers call themselves "the Tethered" -- or rather, Adelaide's does; the rest make only nonverbal sounds. Their actions have been somehow dependent on their counterparts' to a point, but with inferior experiences that leave them behaviorally warped and thus easy to recognize as not quite the same people. They remind me of the Morlocks from The Time Machine, living oppressed underground but coming up to kill the people who have it better. They know the topside dwellers never meant them any harm, but that does nothing to quell their hatred or desire to "untether" themselves, usually via scissor stabs. And the Wilsons are far from the only family who have to watch out for associated Tethered.

We get a succinct theory of the "scientific" origin of this menace, but it leaves so much unexplained that I consider the premises more fantasy than sci-fi. And I'm not convinced that the final twist is consistent with the rest.

From the ad campaign with Nyongo's wide, tearful eyes, I had expected a spiritual successor to Get Out. Instead, despite the Wilsons being Black and their local friends being White, race never plays into the plot. If there's an allegory, I can't discern it. There might be an intended message of growing to resemble the monsters we face, but the clearest moral to me is "Practice good defense; don't rely on the police to show up promptly." Which, of course, applies to most horror movies.

Not that the Wilsons have an especially hard time of it as the genre goes. The Tethered may act like they're on serious drugs, but they have no superpowers. They don't always strike at the best opportunity. Sometimes they make mistakes no sane person would make. While there are still plenty of Tethered at the end of the picture, I imagine they wouldn't hold out long.

Is it scary nonetheless? Now and then, thanks largely to the nearly inhuman actions. The excitement is almost exclusively in the second half. I have to say that the buildup left a lot to be desired, as I could scarcely comprehend Adelaide's fear until the aforementioned midpoint.

The best thing about Us is the acting. All four main actors do a fine job both as the Wilsons and as the...Anti-Wilsons, tho Nyong'o unsurprisingly takes the cake.

The upshot is better than I had been led to anticipate, but it doesn't recapture the glory of GO. I hope Peele comes closer someday.