The Shadows We Carry: Unpacking the Layers of Jordan Peele’s Us
Not only did Us terrify audiences when it premiered in 2019, but it went on to haunt them as well. Jordan Peele’s “follow-up” to Get Out was more than a simple horror film; it was a riddle, in red jumpsuits and gold scissors, a reflection of America’s unhealed wounds. The film was so provocative that audiences left the theater whispering their own theories, dissecting frames, and questioning the very reflections that stared back at them. Us told a profound story about the duality of the monsters we create when we refuse to look at ourselves.
A Mirror with a Pulse
The film begins in 1986 when a young girl named Adelaide wanders into a Santa Cruz funhouse and encounters her exact double. That single encounter fractures her life. Decades later, as an adult (played with eerie precision by Lupita Nyong’o), Adelaide returns to the same beach to stake a vacation with her husband Gabe (Winston Duke) and their two children. What begins as a nostalgic vacation ultimately ends in horror, when a family of doppelgängers — ‘The Tethered’ — appears at their door.
The doubles, dressed in crimson, holding shiny scissors, are villains. They talk – or perhaps, croak – like muted echoes of the main characters and embody shadow humanity. Those who are ignored, the faceless, the ones condemned to mimic the surface world and never be seen. Peele transmutes the idea of a home invasion thriller into a disquisition on one’s comfort, the cost of it, and the inequality it exposes.
Lupita Nyong’o and the Voice That Split Audiences
Nyong’o’s dual portrayal of Adelaide and her Tethered counterpart, Red, is still one of the most striking performances in contemporary horror. Her voice as Red – shrill and raspy – was most polarizing. It disturbed some listeners, while others found it profoundly sad. Very few figured that Nyong’o drew the voice from the real disorder titled spasmodic dysphonia, a trauma related disorder.
In interviews, Nyong’o once explained how she prepared for the role of Red by studying victims of trauma, and the associated voice patterns, to create the character authentically. However, after the film was released, she received criticism — some advocates for the disabled felt the screen portrayal was similar to the advocacy of the disability portrayed. Nyong’o responded to the criticism with unparalleled criticism and empathy, explaining pain and trauma which manifests physically. “Every part of Red — her body, her voice, her stillness — is the sound of a wound,” she said.
Her performance also received multiple nominations and she has since been recognized as one of the boldest actors in Hollywood. Yet, she explained that Us was the one film that stayed with her after filming was done. “When you play both victim and villain, you realize how close those two are.”
Fan Theories: Who’s Really Who?
From the moment Us was released in theaters, fan speculation about the film also started. One of the most prominent theories was about the real identity of Adelaide — that she and her Tethered double switched places as children. Peele saves this twist for the final moments of the film, but some viewers claimed they saw it coming since the first act.
Prior to release, speculation ran rampant due to early trailers. Some fans thought Us was a prequel to Get Out, taking place in the same universe, suggesting the Tethered were failed subjects of the Sunken Place. Others posited that the scissors represented a form of racial or class disparity. Peele himself contributed to the speculation, suggesting in interviews that the film “isn’t about race this time, but it’s still about America.” Such a statement leaves a lot of open interpretative questions, only adding to the curiosity.
After release, the film prompted even more interpretation. Some viewers claimed it was a parable about capitalism, with the privileged living above ground, while the poor, represented by those tethered, are forced to suffer below. Others interpreted the film as having strong biblical influences, especially with the recurring Jeremiah 11:11: “Therefore thus saith the Lord: I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape.” Peele acknowledged the symbolism and complexity but refused to give one definitive pat explanation, saying “Every theory is right if it comes from your gut.”
The Alternate Endings That Almost Were
Though Jordan Peele kept most of the production details of Us under wraps, the editors later revealed he had planned multiple endings. In one unused version, the Adelaide character (now revealed as the real Tethered) drives away but checks her rearview mirror, only to see Red’s reflection smiling back. In another proposed ending, the Tethered uprising widens to the rest of the nation, complete with a haunting montage of identical families holding hands over major cities, not just Santa Cruz.
Peele picked ambiguity over an apocalyptic scenario. He desired the story to conclude with a question, not a bang: What does it mean when the monster lives on? In a Q&A session during SXSW, he stated, “The ending isn’t meant to resolve. It’s meant to infect you. You walk away wondering who the real villain was.”
Behind the Scissors: The Making of a Modern Nightmare
Peele’s fastidiousness was legendary on set. Every prop, every line, every background song was intentional. For example, the Tethered’s scissors represented duality — two halves that can only cut when united. The red jumpsuits alluded to prison uniforms. The rabbits that populate the underground tunnels represent innocence, but also lab experiments.
Santa Cruz, California, was the filming location – the same location as The Lost Boys, another story about concealed terror beneath a sunny disposition, filmed in 1987. The cast members remembered the uncanny similarities. “We’d film a scene on the beach and then go home and still feel like we were being watched,” recalled Winston Duke.
Peele encouraged the cast to improvise and seek “the humanity in the horror.” Nyong’o and Duke, who played lovers in Black Panther, experienced new and different tension in their chemistry. “We had to unlearn the comfort between us,” Duke explained. “In Us, love turns to fear — and fear turns back to love in strange ways.”
The production also tried to limit the use of digital effects. For the scenes in which each character had to interact with their double, the use of body doubles and split screens was sufficiently precise. Nyong’o had to back to back perform the roles of each character and was required to switch between them multiple times in a day. Crew members described it as “watching possession happen in real time.”
The Internet’s Obsession with the Details
Fans treated Us as a puzzle box, as Peele intended. Analysis of the film exploded in Reddit threads and YouTube essays, including the meaning of “I Got 5 on It,” the symbolism of the underground escalator, and the color red as a motif of revolution. Some pointed out that every Tethered kills their counterpart in a poetic inversion and self destructive way. Others linked the title Us to “U.S.” and framed the film as a critique of American denial and systemic inequity.
Debates continue. Was Adelaide evil, or simply a survivor? Were the Tethered human at all, or metaphors for conscience? Peele, ever the provocateur, stays silent. “I like to think of my films as Rorschach tests. They tell you more about yourself than about me.”
The Afterlife of a Horror Masterpiece
Us went on to gross over $255 million worldwide — a massive success for a mid-budget horror film. Yet its cultural footprint was even larger. Peele proved that horror could again be intellectual without losing its ability to terrify. The imagery — the scissors, the jumpsuits, the eerie “Hands Across America” — entered pop culture almost instantly, from Halloween costumes to political memes. For the cast, it was transformative. Nyong’o’s performance became a masterclass in duality, while Duke emerged as a leading man beyond Marvel’s shadow. Peele, meanwhile, solidified his place as modern cinema’s oracle of social terror — a director who doesn’t just scare you, but makes you complicit in the fear.
What remains after Us isn’t merely dread — it is reflection. Somewhere underneath, the Tethered still wait, telling us the monsters we fear the most wear our faces. And if Jordan Peele taught us anything, it is this: the darkest part of the dark isn’t that it hides us, it’s that it reveals who we truly are.
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