Jordan Peele first frightened audiences with his breakout film “Get Out.” Now he’s ramping up the fear factor with “Us.” Chris Van Vliet takes a look at the film that teaches us not to talk to strangers — even if they look like us.
Peele knows how to scare the heck out of folks. Don’t believe us? Just check out his new flick.
Evan Alex (as Jason Wilson): “There is a family in our driveway.”
Winston Duke (as Gabe Wilson): “It’s probably the neighbors. What? You all scared of a family?”
The movie “Us” will have you thinking twice next time someone stops by your house unexpectedly.
Winston Duke (as Gabe Wilson): “Hi, can I help you?”
Lupita Nyong’o (as Adelaide Wilson): “Zora, put your shoes on.”
Winston Duke (as Gabe Wilson): “If you want to get crazy, we can get crazy.”
This horror movie is written and directed by Oscar winner Jordan Peele.
Jordan Peele: “A woman as a child has a trauma, and she grows up, and that trauma comes back to haunt her — ‘haunt’ — and that trauma has brought its family.”
By trauma, Jordan means scary strangers come to terrorize the Wilson family, and it turns out they are perfect copies of every family member.
Lupita Nyong’o: “I’ve never read a horror film [script], and it was the first one that I read, and I was terrified just reading it, and I immediately invested in the family.”
Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o is Mrs. Wilson, a woman gripped by fear.
Lupita Nyong’o: “I play Adelaide. She is the mom, and she is the primary one we experience the story through. Because of that foreboding sense that something is coming for her, she is on her toes.”
The movie is meant to make you jump out of your seat, but when Winston Duke got Peele’s script, he was frozen in fear and in awe of Jordan’s terrifying talent.
Winston Duke: “The first time I read the script, I sat for about 45 minutes, 40 minutes, just thinking what I got and being blown away with all the things that its tentacles were reaching out and touching.”
Since the movie is full of scary look-alikes, that meant the actors had to play two roles, and many in the same scenes.
Lupita Nyong’o: “Its very weird. You never meet your scene partner, so it’s imaginative gymnastics that you have to perform.”
I don’t have a twin, but I swear there’s a guy who looks exactly like me when I look in the mirror every morning.
Winston Duke (as Gabe Wilson): “What are you people?”
Evan Alex (as Jason Wilson): “It’s us.”
There’s a pretty good chance you might have nightmares after seeing this movie, which creeps into theaters on Friday. Perhaps as a warning, Jordan Peele had a tweet yesterday that simply says, “Us is a horror movie.” Yeah, thanks, Jordan. That’ll help the nightmares.
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