"Us": A Horror Movie That's Not Really About Us

She never returns to Santa Cruz, for obvious reasons, until 2018, when her boorish, clueless husband Gabe (Winston Duke, left) insists:  he needs to kiss up to his wealthy coworker Josh (Tim Heidecker, below).

"See, Honey, something terrible happened to me on the beach at Santa Cruz.  That's why I spent all those years in therapy, and still wake up screaming.  So I'd rather not go."

"We're going."

"Ok, but I absolutely won't go to the beach where the terrible thing happened."

"We're going to the beach."

Jerk.

So they grab their teenage daughter and preteen son (Zora and Jason) and head out to the same summer house that her parents took her to 30 years ago.

That night there's a home invasion.  The intruders look exactly like Addy, Gabe, Zora, and Jason, except their movements are jerky and uncoordinated, they don't seem to be intelligent or even sentient, and they scream a lot.  Only the Addy-double can speak, in a pained, wheezing voice, as if she's suffocating.

This is obviously not an ordinary home invasion, but the clueless Gabe keeps saying "Do you want money?  You can have my car."

Addy-double explains that in 1986, Addy stumbled upon an old government laboratory, and somehow Addy-double was created.  She grew up in the lab, tethered to Addy, forced to imitate her actions, but with rocks instead of toys, and nothing to eat but raw, bloody rabbits.  When Addy married, Gabe-double appeared, but he was a grinning idiot (real-world Gabe the idiot squared).  When Addy gave birth, so did Addy-double, but her children were non-sentient monsters.  Finally they have broken free, and come for revenge.

What a coincidence that she breaks free the moment Addy returns to Santa Cruz.

Fighting, running, schepping on boats, killing, schlepping on boats again, and finally the family ends up at Jason's house.  But he and his family have just been killed by doubles of their own.

More fighting and killing, and then some time to watch tv: apparently doubles have been popping up all over the country.

Post-apocalyptic fighting and killing. Fade out to millions of doubles forming a hands across America chain.

Wait -- how could millions of doubles fit into that single underground lab?  They are physical beings, not spirits, so how did they eat?  How were they created in the first place?  Did you have to be near Santa Cruz?

 Back to micro-level sociological analysis: all of the doubles of Addy's family are killed.  Success.  But, as they drive away, Addy reveals that she is the actual double.  That's why she couldn't speak when she first appeared -- she had to learn how.

So the doubles aren't non-sentient, they're just deprived. They would be like us, if given the opportunity.

I get it; it's a parable on capitalism.  Every privilege you enjoy comes with the price of someone else's misery.  That tomato you bought at the grocery store was farmed by a migrant doing back-breaking work for starvation wages, and it's being sold by a cashier who works 12 hour shifts for minimum wage, with no health benefits.  

Pro: It's nice to see a black family in a horror movie, even though this is a post-racial society where racism does not exist.  The sole inequality is economic.

Pro: I like how the doubles are just exaggerated versions of the real people. 

Con:  There are so many plot holes, it strains suspension of disbelief to the breaking point.  If the doubles were spirits, maybe I could buy it.   Not millions of escapees from a lab in Santa Cruz.

Gay characters: This is a very claustrophobic movie,with Addy's family and Josh's family, and almost no one else.  Assuming that those people are all meant to be heterosexual, that leaves no gay people.  Us is not really about us.

Beefcake:  No.  This is rather a woman-oriented movie. Five female characters, three male, all jerks and losers:

1.  Gabe (Winston Duke) is buffed, but he's wearing a fat suit.

2.  Josh (Tim Heidecker) really is on the chunky side. 

3. Josh (Evan Alex) is only about 10.