The Review of "US" - An Horror Movie

One of the best movies I have seen on Netflix recently is the movie titled "US" which was produced in 2019, and I think the director, Jordan Peele, did a good job. But what baffles me is the number of reviews I have seen from people online. Most of them actually expressed their dissatisfaction about it and tried to appreciate the movie "Get Out" more than this. It's the same director that made this, too, and they expected he did something more perfect with the US movie, but I don't see anything wrong with it, though. Well, we all have our tastes.

The Movie Plot:

The movie begins with young Adelaide enjoying the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with her parents in 1986. While her mother went to use the toilet, her father got distracted, and she wandered off, only to find herself in a house filled with mirrors. The power went off, and she found herself standing next to another being who looked just like her, like a doppelganger.

That incident traumatised her, and she couldn't speak to anyone about it. Fast forward to the present, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong'o) is now grown up and married to Gabe (Winston Duke), with a teen daughter, Zora and a young son, Jason. The family went on a vacation at their summer home, Gabe suggested they go to Santa Cruz beach. Adelaide is terrified of the idea due to her childhood experience but reluctantly agrees.

On their way, they saw an old man who had died and was being carried away with a placard that had the inscription Jeremiah 11 vs 11 on it. Adelaide remembered knowing the man from when she was young and at the beach with her parents. She knew something was wrong, and even when she tried to talk to her husband about it, she expressed her feelings that her double was coming for her. She persuaded Gabe that they leave the house, but he wasn't taking such an idea since they'd just arrived at their summer house.

While at the beach, Jason was missing but was found immediately. Aside from this, every other thing at the beach went well. But when they got home at night, Jason discovered a strange family of four standing in their driveway and called his parents' attention.

Gabe tried chasing them away but they seemed not to be moving at first as they hold hands together forming a straight line until the attack happened. The worst? They looked exactly like the Wilsons except that they wore red clothes and did not seem friendly.

Not only did this happen to the Wilsons but other people as there were their doppelgangers named "The Tethered," killing people. The tethered represent those that were forgotten, oppressed or marginalised parts of society in America. These were people who lived in the shadows, unnoticed and ignored. This movie was inspired by the 1986 event in America called "Hands Across America," and it's meant to raise awareness about homelessness and hunger.

It was an apocalypse and Adelaide and her family were on a mission to flee the country from their doppelgangers and survive the apocalypse. Will they succeed?

In the movie, the tethered use scissors as their main weapons, which symbolise the severing of parts of life and the connection between the tethered and the originals.

What got me curious was the fact that it was only Red (the tethered clone) that could speak while others couldn't. Her voice sounds so creepy and this was because she was strangled when she was a child. She had to express her displeasure at the fact that Adelaide (the original) had a good life while she and the others didn't but were ignored as mirrors living underground.

The movie is a scary one as there were jump scares, plus many attacks and killings. But what got me confused was the end part because it left me with some questions: "How come this happened? Will the Wilson ever find out Adelaide is actually Red (the tethered clone)? If you've watched the movie or are just about to, you will understand what I'm saying here. But I think what matters most here is the relationship between them and how they committed to living happily together despite all that has happened to them.

I'd rate this movie 8/10 because of how violent and horrific it is. At least it was engaging, and I followed up with each scene and also understood the inspiration behind it which was from an 80s charity event. If you'd want to know more about this event, check this link out

_{All images are screenshots taken from Imdb}