Us (2019)

"Middle class guilt manifests in the form of bloodthirsty doppelgängers in Us, writer/director Jordan Peele's follow-up to his hugely successful and audaciously crafted 2017 debut Get Out. The story follows an African American family who are haunted by spitting images of themselves as they are thrown into an imbroglio of physical and existential terror. The polemical auteur espouses a very anti-American and very anti-capitalist ideology, viewing affluence as a status that creates a shadow in which bizarro counterpoints fester."

"Oscar-winning filmmaker Jordan Peele follows his debut feature Get Out with another critically acclaimed horror-thriller. Two parents (Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke) take their kids on vacation, but relaxation turns to tension and chaos with the arrival of shocking strangers at nightfall—strangers that look just like them."

"As in "Get Out," we know to suspect that when things look too good to be true, they probably are, and yet, it would take a pretty twisted mind to anticipate what Peele has in store for us this time."

"Us is too confidently made, too expert in its scene-to-scene command, to call it an example of sophomore slump. Still, [...] you feel a slight letdown."

"In "Us," Peele uses the metaphor of the divided self to explore what lies beneath contemporary America, its double consciousness, its identity, sins and terrors."

"It's a satirical doppelgänger nightmare of the American Way, a horrified double-take in the mirror of certainty, a realisation that the corroborative image of happiness and prosperity you hoped to see has turned its back, like something by Magritte."

"Jordan Peele, in the space of two films, has established himself as the new premier chronicler of the American battle between perception and reality."

"Nyong'o delivers one of the great performances in horror movie history, as Jordan Peele shows us a world tragically untethered to its own humanity, its empathy, its soul. If that's not a scarefest for its time, I don't know what is."

"Although all four lead actors deliver startling performances deserving of praise, Nyong'o must be singled out – she is simply stunning here, and worth seeing the film for alone."

"[B]eyond the jittery mechanics of attack and pursuit, what lingers is the unnerving intimacy of the whole situation, the terrible and mysterious sense of kinship that binds the Wilsons to their malevolent alter egos."

"As home invasion standoffs go, Us would be a thrill ride even if its villains weren't horrifying grotesques of the characters they seek to destroy."