I took it more as him being corny than bad acting.
Too many PMs. Here the damn spoilers
I was invited to a test screening of Jordan Peel's follow-up to Get Out, 'Us' which is set for release in March, 2019. I will keep this post locked as I do no want to get ONTD in trouble.
The film is... an interesting choice. I cannot remember the character's names so I will just call them by their actor's name tbh. There are a lot of details I will miss but feel free to ask questions. Obviously major spoilers ahead so beware. the TLDR version is at the bottom for most of you who don't want to read.
The film starts in 1986 on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. There, we see Lupita Nyong'o's character as a 7 year old girl with her mother and father. She ends up wandering off by herself onto the beach and walks into a house of mirrors. There, she sees an identical version of herself but it isn't a reflection...
We don't see what exactly happens but we do see the aftermath and it appears the girl has PTSD from her experience and is not talking for a while.
We fast forward to present day where a grown up Lupita is with her husband (Winston Duke's character) and their two children, a younger boy and a teenage girl, on vacation near Santa Cruz. They arrive to their beach house and settle in.
Winston then tells Lupita they are going to meet up with their scientologist friends (Elizabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker) at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. She is verryy hesitant at first due to her experience in 1986. She begrudgingly agrees and the family heads to the beach.
They are relaxing on the beach while the alkie scientologists drink up. The family is having fun but Lupita is very tense. Her son Jason wanders off and we again see the house of mirrors nearby... but he does not end up going in. Jason goes to the restroom and when he comes out, he sees a tall man standing on the beach and we can see that his right hand has some kind of glove with blood dripping. Lupita freaks out because he wanders off but nothing else happens and no one else seemed to have noticed the man standing there.
They head back to their beach house and settle in for the night.
Lupita puts the kids to bed but she then tells her husband that she wants to leave asap as she has an ominous feeling about the place. He tells her she is trippin and to calm down. She then tells her husband for the first time the story of when she was a little girl.
As soon as she is done with her story, the lights get cut from the house. Startled, she gathers all her kids when they notice a family of four is standing right outside their house. Winston goes to investigate and tells them to leave when the odd family quickly disperses.
Scared, he heads back in when one of the members of the weird family comes charging in the house. He finally breaks in and injures Winston. The rest of the weird family eventually break in and hold Lupita's family hostage.
The family holding them hostage is verry quiet... and we then realize that all of the family members are almost identical versions of themselves but kind of bootleg and with scissors. One by one, the family get separated with their evil twin.
Winston, still injured, goes to his boat to escape and he eventually is able to kill his evil twin. The rest of the family eventually escapes their twin (but they don't kill them) and flee to the scientologist friends for refuge.
Next, we see the scientologists at their house relaxing when Shelly Miscavage (Elizabeth Moss) hears something outside. Her husband tells her she is crazy and cranks up the music when they are ambushed and quickly killed by their own twins with a pair of scissors.
Lupita's family arrives and sees they are all murdered and the scientologists evil twins are running amok in the house. The family eventually kills all of the twins one by one.
Once they get a chance to breathe, they call 911 only to find out no one is picking up. They turn on the news and see that the entire city of Santa Cruz has been stabbed to death by everyone's respective twin and the twins have formed a chain ala Hands Across America in 1986. They try to decide what to do next and finally decide to head out to Mexico (?) (it isn't clear where they decide) but as they try to flee the city, they run into the daughter's twin and kill her.
As they arrive in Santa Cruz, they are stopped by Lupita's son's evil twin. They confront him and end up killing him. Soon after, her son gets kidnapped by Lupita's evil twin.
Lupita chases after them and ends up going back to the house of mirrors. (this is where things get really weird). Once at the house of mirrors, she looks for her son when she finds an exit that leads down an escalator.
Down the escalator is a long beige hall. She looks through the rooms when she sees her evil twin starring at a chalkboard in a classroom. We then have flashbacks as her as a child doing ballet (they explained she stopped doing ballet after her traumatic experience as a child).
She goes one-on-one with her twin when they show a flashback of her at the house of mirrors as a child. In the flashback, we see when she recognizes her twin in the mirror. The twin forced her down the escalator and locks her up. The twin then goes on to assume the identity of Lupita as a child. Although it is not exactly clear if the evil twin did assume her identity.
Once the flashback is done, we see Lupita and her evil twin fighting. Eventually Lupita ends up killing her twin and is reunited with her son and then with the rest of her family. The family then escapes the city and as the film ends, we see the human chain of evil twins holding hands... and that is it. The end.
Review:
Anyway, the movie was thrilling and entertaining the but last fourth of the movie gets kind of wacky and it does not make a lot of sense. Where did these evil twins come from? Why did it assume her identity? It is not exactly clear that the evil twin does actually assume her identity though. Nothing is really explained, why the scissors? Why the human chains ala Hands Across America? Is the movie some weird metaphor for something that I did not get?
TLDR: Lupita's family is invaded by their evil "twins" while on vacation in Santa Cruz. Turns out the entire city has been stabbed to death with scissors by their respective evil twins. Lupita and family eventually kill their evil twins and the film closes as the evil twins form a human chain ala Hands Across America. It is not explained where these twins come from or why they want to kill everyone or form a chain. The End.
Rating: I would give the first half of the movie a B and the second half of the movie a C-. The acting is great, the music selection is A+, pretty cinematography but the plot/story is a mess and does not make sense. Overall, I give it a C.
@SC kid
@lamekilla
Also been meaning to watch As above so below. Just tell me its much better than the reboot of Blair Witch. That movie made me dizzy and gave me a headache with all the shaky cam work and visuals.
