Jordan Peele’s Get Out was more than just a horror, a comedy, or a psychological thriller. The unexpected smash hit transcended easy genre labels in its exploration of the racism that continues to course through this country’s veins. But for Peele’s next film, Us, the director is diving fully into horror territory as part of building something bigger…
“For my second feature, I wanted to create a monster mythology,” Peele tells EW. “I wanted to do something that was more firmly in the horror genre but still held on to my love of movies that are twisted but fun.”
There doesn’t seem to be much fun in the first two photos, one showing a captive and bloody Lupita Nyong’o. She’s joined by Black Panther breakout Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker in the film that has been draped in secrecy ever since it was announced. However, we’ve got a few more details thanks to this synopsis:
A mother (Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and 12 Years a Slave) and a father (Winston Duke from Black Panther) take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends (including Emmy winner Elizabeth Moss from TV series The Handmaid’s Tale). But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
Nyong’o’s character is suffering from a past trauma and grows increasingly paranoid as time goes on, believing that something terrible will happen to her family. That night she and her husband encounter four mysterious figures, seen holding hands in one of the new images. Peele also revealed that the monsters in his film would be known as The Tethered.
Honestly, the figures in the below photo look like Duke and Nyong’o, so perhaps they’re facing mirror-versions of themselves?
Are we looking at Peele’s version of The Strangers? There may be some element of that but you can bet he’s got grander designs than just a slasher flick. When courting Nyong’o for the role he gave her a list of movies he was drawing inspiration from: Dead Again, The Shining, The Babadook, It Follows, A Tale of Two Sisters, The Birds, Funny Games, Martyrs, Let the Right One In, and The Sixth Sense.
Damn.
Us hits theaters on March 15th 2019.
