For this year’s 31 Nights of Horror Challenge, the Night 5 prompt is Jordan Peele. We watched the movie US on Amazon Prime.

Storyline

In order to get away from their busy lives, the Wilson family takes a vacation to Santa Cruz, California. At night, four strangers break into Adelaide’s childhood home. The family is shocked to find out that the intruders look like them.

Our Thoughts on Us (2019)

A family take a trip to the beach, and soon after their lives take a deadly twist as doppelgangers begin to appear.

I didn’t care for it when I saw it at the cinema, but I thought I’d take another look, based on the various awards, and some of the many good opinions about it.

I liked the initial premise, and those scenes where the family are terrified by their doubles, brilliant, so creepy, but sadly after that it just descends into nothing.

I felt like I was just left to scratch my head wondering exactly what was going on, we’re only given a snippet of the story, I wanted to know more. There were a couple of good scenes, and a few good jump scares, but nothing to really register or keep you awake at night, they could have gone so much further.

I thought Lupita Nyong’o in particular did an excellent job, especially playing the two parts. Overall decent, but a little disappointing.

6 out of 10 stars

Trivia

Jordan Peele gave the cast 11 horror films to watch so they would have “a shared language” when filming: Jaws (1975), Dead Again (1991), The Shining (1980), The Babadook (2014), It Follows (2014), A Tale of Two Sisters (2003), The Birds (1963), Funny Games (1997), Martyrs (2008), Let the Right One In (2008), and The Sixth Sense (1999).

Like The Lost Boys (1987), several key scenes take place on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. This is even referenced in-universe, when Adelaide’s mother (Anna Diop) says, “You know, they’re shooting a movie over there by the carousel.”

The overhead shot of the Wilsons driving to the vacation home, along with the synchronized speech and mannerisms of the twins, is a reference to The Shining (1980).