(IMAGE: Universal Pictures)

Universal Pictures. 2018. Suspense/Horror. 121 minutes.

RATING: 4 angels

The supreme raconteur, Ira Levin, whose works plainly influence writer/director Jordan Peele – deeply – would appreciate the clever ways in which Mr. Peele insinuates the tone (and sometimes themes) of Levin’s many, now classic works of suspense and horror, into his own wry original narratives.  There are shades of The Stepford Wives (1972) and Rosemary’s Baby (1967) in both Get Out and Peele’s new horror/thriller Us, a movie about a family terrorized by doppelgängers (of sorts) who intend to replace them.

This is a recurring theme in Levin’s plays, novels, and scripts.  His work ranged from adaptations of books from other authors, including his first play  No Time for Sergeants (1956), to grand dramas like his own first novel, A Kiss Before Dying (1953), to the suspense of fairly cheesy stories like 1991’s Sliver, which was made into a cheesy film starring Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin in 1993, and the Rosemary sequel, Son of Rosemary (1997). Peele pilfers – and I use the term endearingly – a bit of it all these Levinian tropes and mixes them into films that are as suspenseful and scary as Ira’s stories were, but insightful about the contemporary concerns and fears that underlie the present zeitgeist. Race. Politics. Religion. Science. Class. Us, is mostly about class.  It’s a horror movie that poses a few of simple questions, among them; “Who are we?” and “How can we be sure, who we are?” They are the kind of questions Levin often asked (see: Stepford Wives and Boys from Brazil), and that even novice students of existential philosophy know are unanswerable. Yet, they are questions that lead to the wildest speculations about the nature of self, which is exactly what the very sharp Mr. Peele does – wildly speculate – generally to great effect.

In 1986, a little girl and her parents attend a beach side carnival in Santa Cruz. The father is plainly drunk and fairly unconcerned with the well being his wife and daughter. When mom, irritated, needs to go to the bathroom she tells the father, “Watch your daughter.”  He does not. The little girl wanders off and eventually enters a hall-of-mirrors (Levinian trope) which is where the horror begins — though it won’t manifest for another twenty-years, well after the little girl becomes the breathtaking Lupita Nyong’o, who should have been a movie star a decade ago. But I digress. Now mother to a couple of kids and wife to a successful, if not particularly resourceful, husband played by Winston Duke (Black Panther), her memories of that day in the hall-of-mirrors are dim, yet disturbing. Nyong’o is particularly good.

There are a number of moments and events that present themselves in Us that will take a measure of consideration to discern their meaning, if any. Not all of them are references to the stories of Mr. Levin, but some are. If you know them it makes the experience of Us a good deal more fun than if you don’t. Which is why much of this review is about the work of Ira Levin. Nevertheless, most of Us is the original work of Jordan Peele — and, as was the case for Get Out, there are the hysterically funny moments in Us, much of which is about the way Black folks handle equivalent moments in horror movies that white folks have faced for decades. As Levin wasn’t Black and didn’t have much of a sense of humor, whereas Peele is African-American and funny as hell, one must ascribe the funny bits to Jordan. Still, the scary is plainly the result of a childhood spent watching the pop-horror flicks of a master whose films left an indelible imprint on a young Jordan Peele’s psyche.

The “Hands Across America” event is central to the plot of Us. How? Having seen the film only once, I’m still not sure, so nothing is spoiled here. It’s in the movie and therefore not arbitrary.  Peele, who was born in 1979, would have been about seven years old in 1986. One can’t imagine that the event itself registered, but there it is, playing an outsized role in a movie where most, if not everything, is relevant.  It is interesting that “Hands Across America” is an event that most Americans don’t remember, weren’t alive for or don’t believe happened — at all — much like moon landing and Holocaust deniers. I know better. I held hands with my wife and the actress Kathleen Turner (Body Heat) beneath the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, MO, during “Hands Across America.”  Neither my wife nor I nor Ms. Turner were replaced by doppelgängers  at the time — I think — but, then again, that’s the point of the movie.

How do you know?

Director:  Jordan Peele

Writer:  Jordan Peele

Stars: Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss