Just saw Jordan Peele's "Us" this morning. Damn. Glad I went. It is a prime example why you need to have a director who can handle drama (and also, maybe humor) in order to make a horror film sing -- and also why you hire a lead cast that actually can act. Horror shouldn't be treated like a dump genre, full of talentless hacks, unless that's the outcome you want. Lupita Nyong'o nails this role, and the sweetness is exacerbated by Elisabeth Moss, who while playing a secondary character manages to sell the middle of this film. Both are so damned expressive and capable of creeping the audience out. I don't know how to act like this in terms of delivery and facial expressions, but I admire it deeply.
I liked this film better than "Get Out," honestly. Also, it's one of those films worth a rewatch once you've been through it once, to see if you view it differently. What I love is that all the clues as to one of the major plot points are present in the film but you can still basically miss it -- Shyamalan (in his few good films) and Jonathan Nolan are capable of misdirection as well, in their best work. I kinda figured everything out shortly before the film's end, but it took me longer than expected. Still, I love films that make me think AND that play fair (where all the detail is right there in front of your face, if you can figure it out in time).
Superficially, this film scans at first like a home invasion movie, but becomes far more as it unfolds. There's also some social commentary that could be read into the film.
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And then, as counterpoint, I just watched the original "Pet Sematary" with Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby, directed by Mary Lambert. It's a piece of inert shit, like petrified dung. It has a few moments, but what's 6-7 minutes of "decent" in a 104 minute film? Kudos to Fred Gwynne and the kid playing Gage, they are like the MVPs of this film but as secondary characters just cannot save the picture. While superficially hitting all the major plotlines in the book, this film is a dead corpse, it fails to really connect with the audience or catch why the book can be so unnerving and emotionally devastating. I saw it probably a good 20-25 years ago or so and forgot how awful it truly was. I was hoping Lambert's directing film died after this picture, but now I read that she went on to make a good 10-15 more really bad b-rate horror flicks.
I will try to catch the remake that just came out this weekend, for comparison.