Thursday 28 March 2019

Us - The scoop and digest

Although references are made, Jordan Peele's second feature is not a sequel, or set in the same universe as Get Out.

Lupita Nyong'o - Adelaide Wilson
Winston Duke - Gabe Wilson
Shahadi Wright Joseph - Zora Wilson
Evan Alex - Jason Wilson
Elisabeth Moss - Kitty Tyler
Tim Heidecker - Josh Tyler

Summary

Santa Cruz, 1986.

At an amusement park, a young girl leaves her family and left traumatised after coming face to face with her doppelgänger inside funhouse's hall of mirrors.

Present day.

Years later, the Wilson family (complete with a now adult Adelaide), holiday at their beach house, only to be terrorised by respective clones.

The fight for survival begins.

Ambitious nightmare

With five times the budget of previous project, Peele goes straight for the horror jugular.

What begins as a typical home invasion thriller soon escalates into something far bigger.

Theme of social hypocrisy gets unnecessarily messy, but it's still a hugely impressive effort.

Let's spill spoilers like a clumsy child would with milk.

The Tethered were created by the government to control above ground counterparts, and when experiment failed, vacant puppets were condemned below.

Adelaide's 'evil' opposite is actually the original.

After carnival scene cut to rabbit eye, Adelaide's double overpowered Red and took her place in normal society.

WOW!

She's unlikely to be nominated, but Lupita Nyong'o's dual performance deserves an Oscar.

Michael Abels' score and remixed instrumental of Luniz's I've Got 5 On It reeks of genius.

Menu serves a generous amount of claret, but to avoid 18 cert, some murders occur either off-screen or in less detail.

Atmospheric opening in theme park is fucking brilliant and psychedelic strumming made spine tingle.

Showdown between Adelaide attempting to kill Red is beautifully choreographed.

Bloodied corpses strewn around deserted town is made more striking in daylight and Tethered chain spanning for all we know across America is a sight to behold.

Issues

For me, humour (dark or otherwise), fell way short of nailing bullseye.

Before leaving the Tyler massacre, Gabe throws in a rubbish Home Alone joke, to which Adelaide scolds him for doing so.

WTF?

Family then proceed to bicker over who has the greater kill count.

Bullshit.

Josh and Kitty are shallow, self-centred assholes.

Mercifully, they're not in it for long.

Monologue of how Tethered came to be is bloated, and sequence needed more ambiguity.

Rabbits

Cute creatures dominate opening credits, but what do fluffy tails symbolise?

Red tells Adelaide that Tethered eat them raw to survive.

I prefer mine with salt and pepper.

But going deeper, I think they represent an abandoned experiment.

Amidst the big reveal, they're roaming free - just like the Tethered.

Jeremiah 11:11

"Therefore thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape, and though they will cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them."

Rather than biblical verse, 1111 is prevalent.

Examples include:

Time displayed on clock and ambulance roof and when the Wilson's stroll on sand, shadows loosely represent number.

Nice.

Red (as 'Jeremiah'), believes God is testing her to lead her people from doom.

Influences/homages

In opening scene during Hands Across America advert, we see VHS copies of C.H.U.D. and The Goonies.

Choices aren't for shits and giggles, as the former is a cult classic with subterranean creatures and we all know that t'other is primarily set underground.

While in the Tylers' house, news bulletin even states that 'they' come from the sewers.

There's also The Right Stuff, which also appeared in Captain Marvel.

Setting itself is the same as The Lost Boys, even though town in vampire classic was changed to Santa Carla.

Tyler twins (Becca/Io and Lyndsey/Nix) is surely a nod to The Shining.

Further evidence is when Jason and Zora find originals dead, as posture is rather like iconic flash of Grady twins butchered.

Aerial camera shot of moving vehicle bangs the drum of Kubrick's classic.

Jason wears Jaws tee with pride, and before shit kicks off, beach mirrors a certain scene involving Alex Kintner.

Also, our kid predominantly donning mask is perhaps reffing Friday the 13th?

Name is a bit of a coincidence, yes?

Jason and Adelaide's equivalents Pluto and Red could be refs to The Hills Have Eyes and The Shawshank Redemption respectively.

Dodgy yes, but possible?

Maybe.

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