In 2018, Jordan Peele’s Get Out turned out to be a game-changing horror title which even managed to get an Oscar Nod with Peele winning the Best Original Screenplay. Now the director has moviegoers intrigued for his upcoming thriller/horror title, Us which seems to be even more mysterious and disturbing.
Peele recently spoke to Empire about his upcoming movie Us and spoke about the film’s place in the horror genre and what sparked the idea. You can find the entire story on Empire’s recent March issue.
Peele reveals that the idea sparked when he began “to follow the thread of ‘we are our own enemy’.” When asked who he means by “we”, the director decided to keep that part of details a secret to avoid spoiling anything.
“The movie itself is answering that question. I can’t say it’s not specifically about race, but I don’t want to go too deep into its meaning because it’s there for everybody to discover on their own.”
Peele’s Get Out had horror elements but the director describes Us as a “horror film without any caveats”. He stated that he touched on the horror genre for his last two titles as it allowed him to tackle tough subjects in an entertaining way.
“Horror films are important,” said Peele. “They’re ways that we as a society face our fears. Personally, they serve as a way for me to acknowledge the dark thoughts floating inside of me.”
Similar to Get Out, Us also takes on race but goes beyond by making a comment on how the movie industry views race by not being overtly about race.
“There hasn’t been a horror film about a black family, that I can remember. I think that’s an important thing to note. We have a lot of films in this genre where a family meets a monster, but the fact we’ve never seen a black family in that situation is a problem to me. There’s a presumption in the industry that if black people are the leads in a film it has to be in some way about race. I wanted to show that we can push past that.”
Us hits theaters on March 22 followings its launch at South by Southwest (SXSW) film on March 8.
