It’s no secret to anyone who read the paper or visited the website that I didn’t care for “Us” as a film. I already said as much last week, but I might as well mention again that I thought Jordan Peele missed the mark in the execution of his ingenious idea for a horror film. For me, it didn’t live up to the hype because of incomplete themes and storylines – and plot twist ending that was not properly pieced together or flushed out. I also took issue with how he lowkey chopped the black male characters in the film off at the knees in an attempt to present strong black female leads.
If you haven’t seen “Us” yet, and are nervous about continuing with this commentary, you can relax. I’m one of the three or four critics out here in these streets not serving up major spoilers.
I will say that he didn’t eclipse the brilliance of his debut film “Get Out” with “Us.” But on the strength of his Academy Award-winning debut as filmmaker, his follow-up crushed every bit of competition at the box office and broke records in the process with $70M plus opening weekend.
“Us” now holds the title for the biggest opening weekend for an original horror movie – and the movie is now the third best horror opening of all time after 2018’s “Halloween” sequel and 2017’s reimagination of Stephen King’s “It.”
I’m over the moon by the commercial success of the film – and hope with all my heart that it continues. Yes, I want a film that I didn’t like to keep winning. Here’s why: thanks to Jordan Peele, black lives matter in horror films too.
The subject of whether or not black people are the first to die has been a subject of constant debate. A poll by Complex.com claims to prove otherwise, even though the running joke about how long black characters last is still regarded as a funny fact.
Regardless of how long we live, side from cult classics like “Blacula,” “Tales From The Hood (and its sequel),” “Blackenstein,” “Def By Temptation,” “Bones,” and a few others, black characters are of little consequence to the storyline – regardless of how long we last. Roland from “Nightmare on Elm Street 3” and Brandy’s character from “I Still Know What You Did Last Summer” are among the few exceptions that come to mind for me.
From my first memory of a scary movie, “Friday the 13th: A New Beginning,” we have been getting chopped in the most obligatory and in some cases derogatory methods imaginable. Remember Demon and Anita’s “Ooh Baby” outhouse duet that ended in an R&B massacre? It was as much a mess as it was memorable.
But with “Us,” Peele is serving a genre that has virtually ignored black people yet another mic drop to the question of whether black led horror films can thrive in the genre.
“It really is one of the best greatest pieces of this story, feeling like we are in this time [where] a renaissance has happened and proven the myths about representation in the industry are false,” Peele said recently speaking at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in East Hollywood. “I don’t see myself casting a white dude as the lead in my movie. Not that I don’t like white dudes, but I’ve seen that movie.”
We all have. And we are so glad that Peele has come to show us something else.
“I feel fortunate to be in this position where I can say to Universal, ‘I want to make a $20 million horror movie with a black family – and they say yes,” Peele said.
The hope is that his success will pave the way for others to do the same.
“Us” is currently open in theaters nationwide. The Film is rated R with a running time of 121 minutes.
