With a large amount of recognition and praise Jordan Peele’s last movie, “Get Out,” it was only natural that when he announced he would be releasing “Us” on March 22, there was a great amount of anticipation. After only its first week of being released, “Us” has been recognized globally as a must-see horror movie like no other.

The film begins by following Adelaide Wilson (played by Lupita Nyong’o) and her family as they are traveling to their beach house in the town she grew up in as a child for a relaxing weekend. However, Adelaide becomes increasingly distressed the longer they stay there because of the traumatic experience she experienced there in her childhood. Around 30 years prior, Adelaide wandered off from her parents while they were out at an amusement park. She eventually found herself in a mirror maze where she encountered a doppelganger of herself that came from a failed underground American government experiment to create human clones. Later in the film, the doppelgangers (called the tethered) of the whole Wilson family, and the entire failed experiment, surface with the intention of killing and replacing their human matches.

“Us” was very successful at incorporating multiple elements throughout the film. The suspense was superb compared to the average horror movie. This mainly took place in the middle of the movie when the Wilson family was desperately trying to survive the attack of their tethered. It stood out more than any other house invasion scene because the Wilsons were fighting a more daunting version of themselves. Along with this, it was easy to feel the family’s fears in the scene through the cast’s convincing acting.

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Along with this, the comic relief throughout the film was surprisingly effective in such an unsettling film. The majority of the comic relief came from the father of the Wilson family, Abraham played by Winston Duke. In many scenes that were becoming almost too frightful, he would often ask absurd questions which made the scene feel less unsettling while not overdoing it at the same time.

The most important element that was incorporated was the underlying social issues that were brought to light throughout the film. The films main underlying focus was America’s history of the division between the privileged and the unprivileged, and how it still exists to this day. The tethered represent the unprivileged throughout America, and when the Wilson’s are put face to face with them, they see themselves as the people that are labeled the “others.” When it turns out that Adelaide actually switched places with her tethered when she was a little girl, it becomes clear that there are no “others,” and that the idea has been built into our heads by the lies of America.

“Us” shows the audience that putting ourselves into the shoes of others can be frightening. It highlights the idea that there is still a lot of work to be done in America before everyone will receive the dignity they deserve.