‘Us’ or — Freaky Movements?
Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ (2019) is well made, effective and feels like a suitably logical artistic follow-up to ‘Get Out’ (2017). Once again it is a film constructed of dozens of other movie influences — specifically ‘Jaws’, ‘The Man With Two Brains’, and ‘C.H.U.D.’ — yet still retaining a distinct and unique feel of its own.
It is very nicely shot with some seriously impressive night-time work and Peele certainly knows how to keep the camera sedate enough to allow the actors to drive the majority of the tension with their performances which, once again, expertly flip between the scary and humourous.
Yet it did fall a little short for me. This could be down to its run-time which, at two hours, felt just a tad too long especially as it is wearing its genre credentials even more on its sleeve than its predecessor and I think I could’ve done without the last twenty minutes and that “explanation”. It’s a bit like when films deal with time-travel where, due to the inherent issues of the subject, an explanation that makes total sense and is head-scratch free is going to be tricky, if not impossible, to pull off. I think I could’ve done with a little more left unsaid.
But I think my main problem is to do with the issue of “freaky movements” in horror films. This is something that has been bugging me for a while ever since I first started noticing it. This is when a horror film will illicit scares by having people, mainly children, standing still for no reason (“Oooh! Freaky!) and if they really want to ramp up the freakiness then why not have the kid have their head slightly tilted to one side (Oooh! Really freaky!”)? And if you REALLY want the kid to look weird then why not have them looking up at you with their eyes while their head is slightly bowed and with a weird smile on their face. You know what I mean as it’s been in tonnes of horror films for the last ten years or so.
Then there’s the issue of the actual freaky movement itself which is when, after having stayed motionless for ages, the person will suddenly burst into an expectedly unexpected flurry of staccato, sped-up, angular, insect-like movement or with film frames dropped out or whatever. It’s something that I still think was done best by Chris Morris with the opening sequences to ‘Jam’ back in 2000. Sure, it looks odd but not THAT scary and it’s a trope that, for me, now has zero impact.
Yet these are personal nit-picks and ‘Us’ is an entertaining and interesting film, although maybe not saying too much other than — “Here — take all these elements and make whatever you want of them”, and it does demonstrate that Peele really knows his stuff.
If only it had been just a bit shorter. Oh well. But it has got me interested in what Peele will do with ‘The Twilight Zone’ series. That could be a very nice fit indeed.
