Husband and wife Gabe and Adelaide Wilson take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends. But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited. Us is directed by Jordan Peele and stars Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, and Shahadi Wright Joseph.

Us was a closely anticipated horror movie from Jordan Peele after his spectacular debut Get Out. Everybody including me was closely anticipating what his next release would be and when he finally announced that he was releasing another horror movie called Us, expectations were high. I was very much looking forward to it. Once the movie was released the reviews of it were mostly positive some were maybe a little bit disappointing after just how good Get Out was but mostly positive nonetheless. I believe that Us is a fantastic film that more than delivers without having to ride the coattails of Get Out’s fame. I can see how some may have been a little disappointed with the film but honestly, I don’t think Us stood a chance of gathering the same amount of praise as Get Out did. Nevertheless, Jordan Peele was proven to be a horror commodity with the success of Get Out and Us only confirmed it.

Us more than Get Out is without a doubt a horror film. Get Out while amazing as it was, it fit the box of being more of a thriller. But Us it’s clearly a horror movie. What I appreciate most about Us is the world-building and overall structure of the universe that Peele crafts. Us feels like it’s exist in its own universe like how Black Panther truly feels like it is this what in Wakanda. A lot of horror movie don’t feel like it’s necessary to explain the universe or expand upon the setting of the film but what I appreciate about Us is how much detail is put into the setting and the characters. These feel like real places and these feel like real people that this terrible thing is happening to. That’s what makes Us the more frightening to watch because you connect with these characters in to see this happening to them is terrifying. Peele wants you to care about these characters not only what he’s putting them through. He also wants the audience to understand their motivation and how that connects with the overall story. In Us case the message he wants to tell about class. In Get Out it’s what he wants to tell about race. Peele doesn’t want to leave the viewers with just a simple horror film that they’ll forget in a few hours. He wants to leave an impact on them and I believe he succeeds. Maybe not as well as Get Out but he succeeded nonetheless.

All in all, I think Us is is a worthy successor for Get Out and while I can understand why some people may have been a little disappointed in Us, I don’t believe that has much to do with the film itself. I think people may have expected us to be in line of Get Out and be more of a psychological thriller and change the horror genre as we know it but it doesn’t really do that. It has a good message about class and how society manages to keep the same people down, but it’s not changing the horror genre forever but it also didn’t have to do that. Get Out already did that and I think if people re-examined Us in the future and see it as its own horror movie I think they will be pleasantly surprised with the commentary it provides without ripping off Get Out. It is a high quality horror movie that deserves more than hiding in Get Out’s shadow.