“Who are you people?”

***

Jordan Peele’s wild follow up to Get Out contorts from quietly creeping tension builder to all-out bloodfest, bending expectations of its direction, its characters, and of social rights and wrongs. The unsettling doppelganger imagery of the first act makes way for a midpoint jolt into violent, otherworldly territory. Yet any worries of the savagery wearing thin are dispelled by its relentless energy and creativity, a cracking score, the payoff of recurring motifs and Peele’s tongue in cheek humour perfectly intertwining the horrifying with the farcical.

It’s horror with a level of intelligence and a unique voice, unafraid to lean into its more bizarre tendencies in exploring the failings of modern American society and the class system through the eyes of the underclass. It does so with varying degrees of subtlety (a late exposition dump out of step with the otherwise open-ended answers the film offers up), but Lupita Nyong’o’s extraordinary double-duty performance ties the two sides of Us together beautifully; all whilst its characters try to tear each other apart.

Rating (out of 5):