“For my second feature, I wanted to create a monster mythology,” Jordan Peele told Entertainment Weekly about his forthcoming new horror movie “Us,” the follow-up to his Oscar-winning and critically-acclaimed “Get Out.” “I wanted to do something that was more firmly in the horror genre but still held on to my love of movies that are twisted but fun.”
READ MORE: Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ & The 100 Most Anticipated Films Of 2019
That about sums up Peele’s “Get Out,” so perhaps we’ll be receiving a film in a similar vein with his patented social twist and dissection of race in America. “Us” stars Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. A few more details from the film have been revealed. First, here’s the semi-official synopsis, not quite confirmed by Universal, but essentially confirmed by EW.
READ MORE: The 25 Best Films Of 2018
A mother (Academy Award winner Lupita Nyong’o from Black Panther, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and 12 Years a Slave) and a father (Winston Duke from Black Panther) take their kids to their beach house expecting to unplug and unwind with friends (including Emmy winner Elizabeth Moss from TV series The Handmaid’s Tale). But as night descends, their serenity turns to tension and chaos when some shocking visitors arrive uninvited.
READ MORE: The Worst Films Of 2018
Now a few more details. Nyong’o’s character — who’s haunted by a lingering trauma from her past — becomes increasingly more paranoid that something bad will happen to her family. As night falls, the Wilsons see four figures holding hands and standing silently at the bottom of their driveway… ”
Peele apparently didn’t have to sell the Oscar-winner Nyong’o too hard; she was dying to collaborate. “He was on my wish list of people to work with,” she said. “The very fact that I have not done anything like it was appealing, because it promised growth and excitement and new territory.”
Peele, ever the horror aficionado, gave her a list of ten films to watch as a “shared language” that would act as shorthand for the tone he was trying to achieve and it’s a pretty great list of cinephile-friendly horror: “Dead Again,” “The Shining,” “The Babadook,” “It Follows,” “A Tale of Two Sisters,” “The Birds,” “Funny Games,” “Martyrs,” “Let the Right One In,” and “The Sixth Sense.”
That’s all we know for now, but it’s a good tease that doesn’t spoil too much. “Us” arrives in theaters, March 15, 2019. As recent viral games with film critics reveal, the first trailer will arrive on Christmas Day (early). Update: new photo via Empire too.