On March 22, Jordan Peele released his second horror movie “Us”. After an academy award from his directorial debut, “Get Out”, Peele wanted to follow up his success with an equally chilling movie.

The story begins with a little girl, Adelaide Wilson, on vacation at her family’s beachfront home. She wanders off, getting lost in a carnival’s room of mirrors. As she turns around, she sees another girl, identical to herself, but a different person. Still traumatized by the experience, she returns to her childhood vacation home with her husband and children. Her growing suspicion of something bad happening becomes a reality when a masked family appears in their driveway. Once they remove their masks, the family learns that each one is a mirror image of themselves. They represent a population of clones called “the Tethered”. They force Adelaide’s family to fight them for survival.

The relationships between each character and their doppelganger brought a frightening and allegorical effect to the horror film. The films lead, Lupita Nyong’o, played the role of Adelaide Wilson, a normal life mom, and her nefarious doppelganger, Red. The relationship that the doppelgangers hold amongst each other differs dramatically from the happy lives lived above them. The unwanted lives that the doppelgangers are forced to follow brings an eventual havoc to rise around the world. The final shot that ends the movie shows the Tethered people linking hands across a mountain range in California, referring back to the Hand Across America shot that began the movie.

An anonymous CdM student who watched the screening after its debut stated,”It was such a complex movie with so many different layers and twists to its storyline. The movie in its entirety embodied a meaning greater than what I comprehended while watching it.”

Peele’s,”Us,” will continue to amaze its audience with its unexpected twists and turns in its remaining time in theatres. His path to further explore the depths of the “American nightmare” will grow as he continues his new career in movie directing.