US (2019) ***

Lupita Nyong’o stars as a woman who had a traumatic incident in a funhouse as a child.  Years later, she and her family vacation in the same seaside resort town and are besieged by creepy mirror image versions of themselves.  They try to escape, but soon discover they can’t outrun their deadly doubles forever.

Us is Jordan Peele’s follow-up to his smash hit Get Out.  I must say I liked it even more than Get Out.  While that film had promise, it ultimately felt like an overlong Twilight Zone episode.  Us has some of the same weaknesses that flick had (it runs on too long and suffers from a predictable twist ending), but unlike Get Out, Us has a handful of genuinely suspenseful sequences, some big laughs, and a creepy atmosphere that surrounds the entire picture. 

Overall, Us is probably about twenty minutes too long (it’s nearly two hours), but when it hits its sweet spot, it’s a crackling good time.  The middle section of the film is gripping as Hell as it brims with tension as the family fights back against their disturbed doppelgängers.  The scene where they take refuge with a family friend is equally intense and contains at least one big belly laugh courtesy of an Alexa type device.  

The cast are all strong and do a fine job playing both their evil twins and their normal selves.  Lupita is particularly good in the lead, and Winston (Spenser:  Confidential) Duke has several funny moments as her disbelieving husband.  Elisabeth (The Invisible Man) Moss also gets a memorable scene when her psychotic double flips her shit.

Peele once again shows he is a filmmaker who is unafraid to take the horror genre into new places.  At first glance, there’s not as much social commentary here as there was in Get Out.  Then again, those scenes of the family sitting around the TV watching in shock as the world goes to Hell in a handbasket hit kinda close to the mark these days.