High praise doesn’t get any higher than this.
Ever since his $4.5 million budgeted twisted chiller Get Out went on to make over $255 million worldwide, bag a Best Picture Oscar nomination, and become the first black Best Screenplay winner ever, we have all been keeping an eye on what Jordan Peele was going to do next.
Turns out, the answer was: A LOT.
He has executive produced the Amazon true-crime docu-series Lorena, YouTube’s Black Mirror competitor Weird City, an updated version of iconic scary show The Twilight Zone, the remake of Candyman, plus he’s voicing one of the new characters in Toy Story 4.
Even with all of that, the one project that had everyone excited was Us, a new horror that he has written and directed, and one that has promised to be a more-direct scary movie.
It seems to start of as a regular home invasion thriller, with a family on holiday held hostage in their rented house by a group of criminals… until they realise that the criminals are their exact doubles.
The movie premiered at the SXSW Festival this weekend, and the initial reviews are making some very big claims, comparing Peele’s new movie to some of the masters of the genre:
“Once again, the director draws upon the sketch-comedy gifts he honed on Key & Peele to achieve an artful, ruthless balance of horror and hilarity. Us is a tour de force of comic tension and visceral release, a movie that weaponizes our chuckles against us and reminds us that laughing, screaming and thinking are not mutually exclusive pleasures.” – Los Angeles Times
“A brilliant home-invasion thriller laced with cultural reference points stretching back to the late ’80s, and a smorgasbord of first-rate visceral cinematic scares. Think Funny Games collided with Cronenbergian body horror and Hitchockian suspense, and you’re maybe halfway there.” – Indiewire
“Peele directs Us with a masterful collection of horror-movie tricks — jump scares that actually pay off, a cat-and-mouse game in an isolated place filled with bright lights and deep pools of impenetrable shadow, a throat-closing Michael Abels score full of intense drumming and choral chanting that elevates the action to operatic levels of drama. But his greatest asset is the performances, which turn an already creepy premise into something endlessly inhuman and unnerving.” – The Verge
“Us is a very, very strange film. But that’s OK because it wouldn’t be a Jordan Peele joint if there wasn’t a little risk involved. Peele has proven that he’s not a one-hit-wonder with this truly terrifying, poignant look at one American family that goes through hell at the hands of maniacal doppelgangers.” – IGN
“Like The Shining, there are a number of different ways to interpret Jordan Peele’s excellent new horror movie, Us. Every image seems to be a clue for what’s about to happen or a stand-in for something outside the main story of a family in danger. Peele’s film, which he directed, wrote and produced, will likely reward audiences on multiple viewings, each visit revealing a new secret, showing you something you missed before in a new light.” – RogerEbert
Yep, we’re pretty excited about this one!
Keep an eye on JOE and The Big Reviewski for our full review soon.
Us is released in Irish cinemas on Friday 22 March.
Clip via Universal Pictures Ireland
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