For years Jordan Peele made us pee our pants with laughter as one half of Key and Peele, alongside Keegan-Michael Key. Then he stepped behind the camera, turned his sights to directing and scared the absolute bejeebus outta us instead. Which makes the Ritz double feature of Get Out and Us the perfect way to spend Halloween night.
Landing an Oscar for best screenplay is a pretty nifty way to announce your directorial debut. Runaway success story Get Out packed in punters who revelled in Peele’s uproarious, sharp horror-comedy. It’s a wild ride with a social punch and features Brit Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, the African-American boyfriend of Girls star Allison Williams’ Rose, who gets a lot more than he bargained for when he travels to upstate New York to meet her Obama-voting parents. Williams is a hoot too, gamely satirising her role in the Lena Dunham show.
It made us awkwardly snort-guffaw, Scream-style. And therein lies its power. By skewering white privilege and outright racism with a knowing wink, Peele smartly played to two audiences. People of colour got to whoop with recognition at the bullshit they know all too well, while white folks got to squirm in their seats and check themselves.
Hung on a startling performance by Lupita Nyong’o, Us takes things in a slightly creepier, more dystopian direction with a sorta-zombie take on the general malaise of America and the ever-widening gulf of economic inequity. Black Panther star Winston Duke is also great as her partner, with The Handmaid’s Tale’s Elisabeth Moss as their holiday home neighbour. Sunning themselves by the lake soon takes a turn for the mayhem when evil doppelgängers show up. You can grab tickets here, and brace yourself for a spooky Halloween indeed as you Peele back the velvet curtain on a cracking pair of American horror stories.
