Horror film – C-VILLE Weekly

Second that: Jordan Peele thrills again with Us

With Get Out, Jordan Peele electrified the world of modern horror filmmaking, reinvigorating the potential for strong socio-political messages in harrowing and entertaining packages. The message amplified the scares and vice versa, sending shockwaves all the way to the Academy Awards. With Us, Peele cements his position as a genuine auteur with far more to offer than we saw in his huge debut (as if that were ever in doubt). Us is not as revolutionary as Get Out—and thank God. How boring would it be if he tried to break the mold every time? Like if every song on Led Zeppelin IV was a variation on “Stairway to Heaven.” The worst thing Peele could have done would be to emulate his previous breakthrough, and with Us, he proves that he is worth the hype.

Us follows the Wilson family: mother Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o), father Gabe (Winston Duke), daughter Zora (Shahadi Wright Joseph), and son Jason (Evan Alex) on their annual trip to their summer home—the house in which Adelaide grew up.

A trip to the nearby boardwalk and carnival revives memories of a traumatic event from Adelaide’s past that she has never shared. When she visited this same carnival as a child, she wandered away from her family and saw her doppelgänger in a house of mirrors—not a reflection. Bit by bit, we see glimpses of the event and the emotional consequences to her and her parents. Little coincidences lead her to believe that her double is coming for her, until one day copies of her and her entire family appear at their house during a power outage. The strangers have mysterious origins and unclear motives, but Adelaide must fight for her family’s lives, and her own right to exist.

Us

R, 121 minutes

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

There are as many twists and turns in Us as there were in Get Out, but if you happen to hear an unwanted spoiler, the fun will not be ruined. In Get Out, the audience’s ignorance of the larger plot was crucial to the film’s air of creepiness, and put us in the shoes of the protagonist. In Us, everything is bad, it escalates, and there is no easy way out. I happened to predict some crucial twists, but when they came to be, they were still scary, satisfying, funny, or all three.

In addition to the scares and jokes, Us is a tribute to social relics of the past. The film opens in 1986, with Adelaide watching an old TV set with various VHS cassettes on either side (watch for references to those films throughout; some are obvious, some are subtle). Among the things she witnesses is an ad for Hands Across America—if you’re old enough to remember, you’ve also likely forgotten this massive non-event by now. But, like many of the best horror films, Us seizes on the shadows of memories either buried or cast aside. Just because we never talk about it anymore doesn’t mean its traces have disappeared, and so too with personal memories and trauma.

The film works on almost all levels: visually, thematically, and even comedically. Nyong’o is spectacularly creepy in her dual roles, while Duke is a revelation as the goofy dad. The performances from child actors are terrific, and supporting turns from Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker prove surprisingly resonant. There are a few narrative hiccups that interrupt the flow, including at least one twist that might actually be impossible, but they don’t drag the film down. Us is a great sophomore film from a gifted filmmaker who has many more stories to tell

See it again: Napoleon Dynamite

PG, 96 minutes

The Paramount Theater, April 2

Local theater listings:

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

Fresh blood: An all-new Halloween sheds the plague of sequels

We’ve had Halloween sequels for decades. What’s different this time? The same thing that’s different in found footage, possession movies, even the Amityville franchise: fresh blood, literally and figuratively. For many of the slasher sequels and remakes of the ’80s and ’90s, it was difficult to tell what the filmmaker disliked more, the audience or horror movies themselves. Some mainstays are campy fun and October traditions. (Freddy and Jason will always be a welcome sight), but the reflexive greenlighting of all horror sequels has led to great characters and premises being stretched beyond their appeal. This also killed the fun of the half-ironic, self-aware crop of films that followed Scream.

Few icons have had their legacies sullied as much as Michael Myers, the silent, hulking force of nature who first squared off with Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in 1978. His featureless mask, plain clothes, and unknowable motives made him terrifying. His movements were slow but portentous, with the inevitability of an approaching glacier; any safety you feel is an illusion. Laurie, as depicted by Curtis, was an effective audience surrogate, but more than that we watched her discover a will to survive she did not know she had.

And then there are the sequels; turns out Myers is Laurie’s brother; he’s a reincarnated Druid something or other; then a wounded little boy in the misguided Rob Zombie remakes. These explanations make the monster both less scary and less interesting. Backstories like these are not useful for a character as menacing as Myers. Thinking about his origin is like watching an oncoming tsunami when you should be fucking running.

Enter David Gordon Green, once heir to Terrence Malick’s throne (see George Washington, All the Real Girls), who began making stoner comedies (Pineapple Express, Your Highness) before splitting the difference in recent years (Prince Avalanche, Manglehorn). In other words, not the first person you’d expect to pivot into slasher territory.

With co-writers Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley, he is very much on a mission to rehabilitate this series while undoing the wrongs of the past. The focus here is on the legacy of tragedy from generation to generation, as well as the danger of mythologizing that which does not operate by human understanding. Laurie, now living in near isolation, has been estranged from her family after subjecting her daughter (Judy Greer) to a lifetime of survivalist preparation viewed as abuse. Her granddaughter (Andi Matichak) makes efforts to involve Laurie in their life, but it is apparent that she is not free of the trauma from 40 years ago. Meanwhile, a pair of podcasters from the UK set off a chain of events that unleashes Myers on an unsuspecting and unprepared public.

Some may find the irony and self-awareness of the first half off-putting, but Green’s theme of understanding the past has an eye toward undoing the damage done by the awful sequels (which are totally ignored). Green captures some of John Carpenter’s magic in depicting the power Myers has over any space he occupies. Curtis is also in top form, and even if you have no investment in the franchise, she is the reason to see this.

Halloween R, 116 minutes; Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Playing this week

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

A Star is Born, Bad Times at the El Royale, First Man, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, Venom

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

A Star is Born, Bad Times at the El Royale, First Man, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, The Hate U Give, The House with a Clock in Its Walls, Night School, The Oath, Venom

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

A Star is Born, Bad Times at the El Royale, Blaze, Colette, The Devil’s Backbone, First Man, Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, The Guilty, The Hate U Give, The Oath, The Old Man & The Gun, The Sisters Brothers, Venom