Jordan Peele explains differences between Us and Get Out

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Come March Oscar-winner Jordan Peele will unveil his new, highly-anticipated movie – US – after delivering the explosive GET OUT back in 2017. People are already waiting on the edge of their seats to see if he can recapture the terrifying magic that made his first movie work so well, meshing spine-tingling suspense with complex social commentary. While there may be some elements that transfer between the two movies, Peele is approaching US with a slightly different intent, albeit still with the goal of scaring us to death.

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The director recently spoke with Empire (via Pursue) about the upcoming nightmare, saying that he got the idea for it when he started to explore the concept of “we are our own enemy.” As for who that “we” is, Peele says he wants people to figure out that mystery themselves.

“The movie itself is answering that question. I can’t say it’s not specifically about race, but I don’t want to go too deep into its meaning because it’s there for everybody to discover on their own.”

US centers on a black family (led by Lupita Nyong'o and Winston Duke) who starts to live their own nightmare when individuals who look exactly like them break into their home and begin to terrorize them. Peele continued, saying this was an opportunity for him to make a horror film starring a black family simply be about a black family, and not about race-related issues as a whole.

“There hasn’t been a horror film about a black family, that I can remember. I think that’s an important thing to note. We have a lot of films in this genre where a family meets a monster, but the fact we’ve never seen a black family in that situation is a problem to me. There’s a presumption in the industry that if black people are the leads in a film it has to be in some way about race. I wanted to show that we can push past that.”

While GET OUT was praised for using the horror genre to explore themes of racism in modern America, Peele said US is a “horror film without any caveats,” and that he wants to use the genre to tackle subjects that make audiences – including himself – uncomfortable to confront.

“Horror films are important. They’re ways that we as a society face our fears. Personally, they serve as a way for me to acknowledge the dark thoughts floating inside of me.”

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The trailer for the movie dropped last month, and so far I have seen it played before about three movies in theaters since then, and I always find something new to discover/be scared of with each viewing. The movie looks unsettling and more vicious than GET OUT and no less intelligent, so I’m very eager to see how he follows his innovative first feature. I also plan to burn all the scissors in my home afterward. 

US hits theaters March 22 after premiering at SXSW March 9.