Jordan Peele’s recent film Us (2019) cashes in on what horror does best: it takes a comfortable setting and makes it very, very uncomfortable. In Peele’s movie, that setting is a Santa Cruz-area summer home owned by the Wilson family. What begins as a relaxing getaway ends in a bloody showdown between the Wilsons and a murderous foursome that looks creepily similar to them. Like these doppelgangers, the physical spaces of vacation—the house, the nearby lake, the beach boardwalk—become, over the course of the film, decidedly uncanny.[i] The lush verdure of the house’s front yard becomes a menacing jungle in which the intruders easily conceal themselves; the once-placid lake becomes a watery grave; instead of a cozy glow, the den’s fireplace casts a hellish backlight behind the grinning doubles. Read more
