Jordan Peele’s Us is looking like it’s going to be another landmark entry in the horror genre. The writer/director’s follow-up to 2017’s groundbreaking Get Out is ramping up the scares in every single way. If you’re interested in knowing a little more about how this vision came to be, we’ve got some behind-the-scenes details to shed some light on the brains behind this new nightmare.
A Student of Horror
Some directors only use the horror genre to jumpstart their career and very quickly move on to other genres. As a hugely successful comedy sketch writer and performer, it’s clear that this doesn’t apply to the creator of Us. The phenomenal success of Get Out cemented Peele’s status as an expert in immersive and culturally relevant horror. The movie was nominated for three Academy Awards® – including Best Director – and won the Academy Award® for Best Original Screenplay. For Peele, the horror genre wasn’t a way in, but a passion to which his previous success opened a path. He’s excited about horror, and his work behind the scenes on Us only solidifies that.
“[Jordan] created a list for me of films to go through that ranged from Dead Again to A Tale of Two Sisters, The Shining, Alien, The Birds,” says lead actress Lupita Nyong’o. “That was very informative, not just for how he was framing this world, but also for specific moments in those films that he pays homage to in Us. ” Looks like horror aficionados need to start combing through those movies to see what Easter eggs and references Peele is putting into Us.
Something else worth picking apart is the social commentary behind Us. Peele is the kind of artist that’s determined to make his work mean something that’s both personal and political. “[Americans] have a fear of the outsider,” says Peele. “It’s built into the fear of everything from terrorism to immigration. One of the great core horror films that carried a powerful social message is George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. That movie was about race even though they don’t really talk about race in the film. I wanted to follow that approach with this movie.”
How to Make a Monster
With Us, Peele is given the chance to conceive of brand new monsters in the form of The Tethered – frightening doppelgängers of the main characters. When it came to fashioning the look of these copycats, Peele once again drew on his horror knowledge to craft an appearance that would be instantly memorable. “There’s a cult-like element to The Tethered, and the red jumpsuit felt like an iconic choice,” says Peele. “It’s also a kind of an allusion to classic horror characters like Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger.”
In addition to costumes, the actual makeup and hair was an important factor in making The Tethered look distinctly different from their counterparts, the Wilson family. “A lot of what makes The Tethered The Tethered is their hair,” Peele says. “[Hair Department Head] Camille Friend created some unforgettable looks on both sides of the tether.” In fact, makeup artist Scott Wheeler was specifically told to make The Tethered noticeably peculiar. “Typically in a movie that involves doppelgängers, there’s a gag where you think one doppelgänger is the other,” says Wheeler. “Jordan said no to that. He wanted the doppelgängers to look really different than their counterparts because they’ve lived different lives.”
Sleight of Hand Effects
With a film that features doubles of all the main actors, it’s going to require some serious special effects to convincingly pull that illusion off. Luckily, Peele had the wizards at Industrial Light & Magic to help him out. Visual Effects Supervisor Grady Cofer was on set and found that the team became so comfortable with their technical expertise that they were even able to improvise some particularly cool shots.
“There’s this great scene where… Red takes Adelaide’s head and presses it against the glass coffee table,” says Cofer. “While Lupita was performing both sides of that scene, Jordan noticed that there was a nice reflection of Red’s face in the glass top. So he had the Director of Photography frame down on that space, and we were able to compose Red’s reflection right next to Adelaide’s face. It created this really interesting spectral image and juxtaposition.”
But, sometimes Peele decided to forego visual effects. “We did a lot practically with the doppelgängers, and Grady joked that some of those shots are so bonkers that people will think they’re visual effects, even when they’re not,” says producer Ian Cooper. Sounds like part of the fun of Us will be trying to figure out which shots are manipulated with effects and which were pulled off completely in the camera!
Scaring You in the Sunlight, and a Secret Set
Horror movies often take place in creepy locations, but Peele decided to set Us in the idyllic town of Santa Cruz, California. That’s for a very good reason. “Alfred Hitchcock is one of my favourite directors,” says Peele. “…and the West Coast beach vibe of Santa Cruz reminded me of The Birds and of Vertigo.
That location also allowed us to give a little shout-out to The Lost Boys, which is the first movie I can remember to specifically subvert Santa Cruz.” Most importantly, there is a secret set in the film dealing with the origins of The Tethered. We can’t get into spoilery specifics, but you’ll see glimpses of it in the trailer – the shot with a hall of bunny rabbits. Incidentally, keep an eye out for bunny easter eggs – apparently Peele included several. “Bunnies are all over the place in this movie!” Wright Joseph, who plays Zora, says. “Zora wears a sweatshirt with the Vietnamese word for ‘rabbit’ on it. There’s a bunny in Zora’s room at the lake house. There’s one in the twins’ bedroom at the Tylers’. Jordan put all these little hidden things in there. It’s so smart.” Are the bunnies a morbid metaphor for the family’s predicament? A visual representation for corrupted innocence? Or are bunnies just too adorable not to include?
The only way to find out is to see Jordan Peele’s Us in cinemas on March 22nd.
