Much like Jordan Peele’s Us, Max Pachman’s deliberately provocative debut feature Beneath Us presents the viewer with the subaltern- the dispossessed, those without power or a voice and forces us to question who we identify with. The title functions both literally and metaphorically. Four undocumented immigrants, Hector, Alejandro, Homero and Memo (Roberto Sanchez, Rigo Sanchez, Nicholas Gonzalez and Josue Aguirre) are hired by a rich couple, Liz and Ben Rhodes (Lynn Collins and James Tupper) as construction workers on their palatial home. What seems a comfortable job paid in cash soon turns nightmarish as they are treated like slaves at gunpoint, beaten, humiliated and forced to beg for their lives alongside being imprisoned underground. Then the tables appear to turn.
Beneath Us is still awaiting distribution in the US, possibly due to its controversial themes.
Scripted by Mark Mavrothalasitis, Beneath Us engages with tropes of the slasher or ‘torture porn’ narratives- the film posits a struggle between the two groups in an escalation of violence that increasingly debases both. The gun is central in these discourses. The notion that the gun is a necessary tool to protect property and liberty is problematised by the fact that others are robbed of the latter when you invite them on to your property to use them for target practice. Allied to this is the geographical proximity of protagonists relative to their social status. When ‘beneath’ is invoked in horror films, it usually signals the irrepressible energy of the repressed, and the correction of historical misdeeds.
The slavery subtext and the economic and legal disparity between the rich white couple and their four slaves is made explicit in the film, with wry references to immigration debates. This includes a scene in which Liz crushes mice in her kitchen with a candlestick, offering a foreshadowing of her attitude to humans on the margins. She quotes statistics on illegal immigration and asks what is known about those who are undocumented. “Can they be trusted? Are they criminals?” she asks, echoing the language of anti-immigration politics. In a further uncomfortable parallel with contemporary contexts, the workers are forced to strip naked in front of Liz before their torture becomes more physically violent and are further caged on the property by an electric fence.
James Tupper as Ben- dealing with those literally ‘beneath’ him
The couple’s house resembles a Southern plantation, and they make their money as property developers, using slave labour to renovate their portfolio. The obsession with property and décor is established through sensuous shots of the ‘show-home’ house interiors which seem to have little narrative motivation but coupled with the repetition of the song “my little corner of the world” emphasise the link between land and possession. There are similarities with Brian Yuzna’s Society (1989) in the manner in which the film positions class and economic disparity as de-humanising and parasitic.
Liz’s ‘whiteness’ is emphasised by her costume. Once inside the home she wears a white dress and shoes whilst Ben dresses like he is enjoying a privileged weekend at the Hamptons, underlining the fact that civility can be merely a performance- the line between civilisation and depravity both dangerously thin and contingent upon a questionable justification.
Liz’s whiteness (Lynn Collins) is visually emphasised
Beneath Us makes it clear that the workers are not merely anonymous individuals, working to humanise them as people with their own faults, as well as dreams and aspirations. Alejandro, joined in the film by an unscheduled visit from his brother Memo, is attempting to get enough money to bring his wife and young child over to join him, a transaction negotiated with the owner of a pawn shop. Even this dream is perilous. As Alejandro is told, children cost extra. In turn, he demands they not be “put in a trunk”.
The film’s austere opening conflates the fear and claustrophobia of the film’s conceit of entrapment with the migrant experience of transition. Heavy breathing and other signs of human disquiet reveal a subterranean space of death and entrapment, which switches between that and an immigrant, ducked down in a car as it travels silently through the darkness (later revealed to be Memo). As spectators, we are invited to share in this experience, and the rest of the narrative continues this perspective. The first part of the film features conversations almost entirely in Spanish. We follow the brothers as they navigate the in-between spaces of the US economy, as they congregate in a parking lot flagging down cars looking for itinerant, menial workers.
Beneath Us, palatial property and civics lessons at gunpoint
The film even goes as far as linking the fate of the workers to their own actions. They deliberately target Liz and convince her that her services are cheaper than other contractors, before leering at her and discussing her in a sexually aggressive manner in the car ride back to the house, as well as later on at the property. They do this in Spanish, assuming that they do so safely. Language can be a powerful tool. So is the gun, a point underlined by an impromptu English lesson at gunpoint. “You fail English” is the conclusion, powerfully entwining the English language with aggression and coercion in a forceful metaphor for prevailing colonial attitudes.
If the satirical undertones are not sufficient to make the point explicit, the film even ends on what sounds like a real right-wing radio host proposing illegal immigrants be used for slave labour in the United States.
The dark underside of the American Dream
Dehumanisation, immigrants entrapped and humiliated, the dark side of the American dream- Beneath Us strongly resonates with the context in which it was produced. Like Jordan Peele’s US (2019), it offers a scenario with two alleged opposing arguments and invites the viewer to consider where they position themselves within this continuum. Everyone is seemingly claiming that they are not listened to or dispossessed, but some are clearly more justified in that claim due to their economic status. Do we consider others to be beneath ‘us’ economically or do we consider the manner in which others are treated to be beneath us?
Beneath Us is now streaming on Amazon #ad:
Related: For two other excellent horror films that take up immigration politics in the US, you should watch Chris Peckover’s Undocumented (2010) and Jonás Cuarón’s Desierto (2015), which, as I argue here, sets up the white man as monster.
Dr Mark Fryers specialises in film history and theory as associate lecturer at the University of East Anglia. He has previous publications for Rowman & Littlefield, I.B. Tauris and John Libbey Publishing as well as blogs and articles for numerous websites and other publications. He has forthcoming book chapters on Jaws and on British horror television. You can find his essay on “Remember Me” (2014) and the haunted seascapes of British TV in Critical Studies in Television; he has also contributed essays to The Spooky Isles here. He has written on the domestically entrapped male in horror film, especially the 2017 film Marrowbone and on Remi Weekes’ His House (2020)–also about migration–for Horror Homeroom.
You can stream Undocumented on Amazon #ad:
And Desierto#ad:
