The Wilson family owns a vacation house near the beach in Santa Cruz. Adelaide, the wife in the family, had an experience at that beach when she was a little girl and has no desire at all to revisit the place. Her husband convinces her to go there, however, together with the Tyler family to have a good time. Things don’t go as well as planned for, and back at the vacation house that night things turn even worse. Four mysterious people dressed in red appears outside the house, breaking in and terrorizing them. What’s even worse, is that all of these strangers look exactly like themselves…
“Us” is the second horror film directed by Jordan Peele, who made a name for himself with his debut horror movie “Get Out” in 2017. Not unexpectedly, the expectations regarding “Us” has been pretty high, but fortunately Peele shows us that he’s not just a one-time-hit director. “Us” manages to balance suspense, creepiness, social commentary and even a bit of comedy very well, just like he did in “Get Out”. “Us” is more of a straight-forward horror movie, with a higher level of suspense and creepy scenes. With Mike Gioulakis as the cinematographer (who was also the cinematographer for the very suspenseful horror movie “It Follows”), it should come as no surprise that this is a movie that will keep you at the edge of your seat for the most part.
“Us” is a movie that is best seen when knowing as little as possible about it, and I personally recommend avoiding any spoilers prior to watching it. It’s very hard, even impossible, to venture much further into the movie’s plot without spoiling things. There are a few plot holes that might leave you scratching your head in confusion, but fortunately not too much to ruin the experience.
Now let’s look forward to what Peele’s next entry into the horror world might be!
Director: Jordan Peele
Country & year: USA, 2019
Actors: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Anna Diop, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon, Madison Curry
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6857112/
In a serial killer’s now abandoned home, investigators reveal a large amount of VHS tapes that contains his “work” in chronological order as he’s been filming the murders and abuse of his victims. This is the most disturbing collection of evidence the homicide detectives have ever seen, and reveals an in-depth documentation of a serial killer’s reign of terror.
Jong-Goo is a police officer that lives a quiet life in a little village with his wife and daughter. One day he is called to the scene of a gruesome multiple murder case, where a family member of the murdered people is covered in blood from the victims. His skin is covered in strange boils, and he appears to be in a state of stupor. Soon, more incidents similar to this occur all over the little village, and some of the villagers start to blame a newcomer to the area: a Japanese man (played by Jun Kunimura, known for his roles in “Ichi The Killer”, “Audition” and “Kill Bill”) who’s taken residence in the woods. Jong-Goo starts a battle against time to figure out what is happening, as his daughter also starts showing the symptoms.
Loch Ness Scotland, 1976: a group of resarchers are hunting for Nessie. They dive into the lake and find one of her eggs, and guess what happens next: a pissed off CGI Nessie suddenly shows up, goes on land in full rampage mode and devours them. Amongst them is the son of one of the resarchers, who witnesses his father getting eaten. He manages to get away, and fast-forward to present day he has grown up to hunt down Nessie and have his revenge. He wanders around with a cigar and dresses like someone cosplaying a lone-wolf-cowboy with a scar on his face. And whenever he enters a scene we hear a classic western tune, just to make sure to the audience knows that he’s the hero and not one to be fucked around with…which makes it cheesy as hell. No charisma, no screen presence. Someone call Danny Trejo, please. Anyway: during his hunt for the monster, he stops by Lake Superior somewhere in Canada where he believe Nessie’s hidden. Why Nessie decided to travel so far and take residence in a lake in Canada, you may ask? Well, because. We also get introduced to some teenagers you couldn’t care less about, who gets ready for a boat trip, only set up to be killed and eaten.
When strange events occur in a neighborhood in Buenos Aires, a doctor specializing in the paranormal, her colleague, and an ex police officer decide to investigate further.
As I had always thought that The Exorcist was William Friedkin’s one and only pure horror movie, I didn’t know what to expect from this slightly obscure little film called “The Guardian” when it finally came into my radar. So let’s check it out.
