We are the Shadows of Us

Jordan Peele’s new film is a studied and worthy addition to the horror canon.

Us is the world’s most frightening Rorschach test. Its densely symbolic, open-ended nature allows for a myriad of readings all of which indicate more about the film’s viewers than about the film itself. The plot is simple enough: while on vacation in Santa Cruz the Wilson family is attacked by a set of nightmarish doppelgängers and must either escape or suffer death and mutilation at the hands of these murderous, scissor wielding maniacs. What these doppelgängers — the Tethered — represent is a topic sure to generate millions of online think pieces. Are they the Jungian shadow, a manifestation of the repressed dark side in all of us? A symbol of the have-nots bent on destruction of the socioeconomically privileged in a system of gaping inequality? A macabre metaphor of America’s racial history? Perhaps a cautionary tale about the destructive folly born of revolution? Or is it all about American self-imposed amnesia in response to historical atrocity? The list of interpretations goes on and on like an exegetical Hands Across America. In the end, however, the only question that must be asked of Us is whether or not it succeeds as a horror film. The answer is a qualified yes.