Welcome to the 21st century, where ghosts are hunted and celebrated, and the human mind is the scariest thing you have ever seen. In this age of demand for psychological thrillers, Jordan Peele keeps his audience satisfied with bone-chilling horror movies one after another. “Us” is yet another horror masterpiece following his psychological thriller film “Get Out” which was released in 2017.
Both the films have very similar psychosocial messages hidden inside the core of the plot. Peele’s “Get Out” brings out current pressing issues related to racism and microaggressions hidden inside a thrilling horror story. With “Us,” Peele keeps up with a similar tempo, subtly expressing the dark side of the human mind engulfed inside a thrilling plot.
Anyone who has seen this movie can identify the biggest twist in the climax, where we figure out that 33 years ago Red would have switched places with Adelaide when she she encountered her inside the “Fun House.” However, the question that everyone had was “How did the real Red learn to act normal and how did the real Adelaide become one of “Tethered?” We get a glimpse of this twist as soon as the “Red” family captures Adelaide’s family, because Red was the only one among the tethered who could talk.
Many people believed that the tethered were soulless because they did not have any freedom. They were trapped with no contact to the outside world, forced to breed and eat rabbits. Peele’s dystopia suggests that freedom is what gives space for decision making, out of which a soul is grown. Once it is taken away it becomes just a body. Perhaps this is the reason that the real Red, was able to survive and live a happy life as Adelaide in the outside world, whereas all Adelaide knew was vengeance and eventually “lost her soul.”
Another underlying and maybe the most obvious psychological aspect of this thriller that I believe Peele was trying to highlight, is that we are all tethered to the worst versions of ourselves. Peele was maybe influenced by Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality. According to Freud, the Id is a part of our psyche that controls the most instinctive needs and desires that we have as humans, which is often buried deep within. Peele also illustrates how the “soulless tethers” (the dopplegangers) control the people above.
One of the themes that gave this movie an eerie feeling is that most of the horrific things took place in happy places. This made me wonder: why was it that happy things easily give the creepiest vibes?
Why are clowns so scary? Why are abandoned carnival spots perfect for freaky things to happen? Why did Adelaide encounter her doppleganger Red inside the house of mirrors at the Santa Cruz beach, the least expected place to be horrifying?
There’s a thin line between happiness and fear. As humans, our survival instincts are the most innate feelings. We always expect the worst. So, if something is happy, we immediately think that something scarier is hidden right behind the joyful exterior. Fear of the unknown and human cynicism form the basis for this distrust of happy things. “Us” has so cleverly ruined carnivals, mirrors, and even cute fluffy rabbits.