Us is the only movie all your friends are going to be talking about right now, and while Jordan Peele's twisty horror movie is an undoubtedly thrilling experience, some people who do not really get into horror movies may be trepidatious about buying a ticket. If you are a self-described scaredy-cat, then you are probably feeling torn about whether or not to go see Us. So for everyone wondering how scary Us is, consider this your spoiler-free primer to help you decide whether or not you want to go see it.
The most salient comparison for Us would be Jordan Peele's breakout 2017 horror debut, Get Out. Even for the horror-averse, Get Out is actually pretty tame in terms of screams. The 2017 movie had its fair share of jump scares and creepy imagery, but the genius of that movie was how often it was able to undercut horror with humor. It also did not include any supernatural monsters or anything like that, opting instead to shine a light on institutional racism in America as the true villain of the movie — which is scary in a different way than a shrieking, blood-soaked demon or something like that.
But if you are a scaredy-cat who was barely able to see Get Out, you will definitely have a harder time with Us. The characters in Us are a whole lot stranger and more monster-ish than the villainous family in Get Out, and Us includes many more jump scares and much more gore than Get Out did. So the verdict for scaredy-cats is: Us is definitely way scarier than Get Out.
In terms of other recent horror hits, I would say that Us is closest to being on par in scariness with A Quiet Place, and it is actually less scary than Hereditary. Much of the horror in Us comes from suspense, which is why I would say it is closest to A Quiet Place. If you were able to get through John Krasinski's super-suspensful monster movie, then I would think that Us should be no problem for you. And if you loved Toni Collette's devilish horror flick Hereditary, then you really do not need this primer because you're no scaredy-cat, and Us will be fine for you to watch and be thrilled by.
The real horror in Us comes from the creepiness of the murderous doppelgänger characters, called the Tethered. Lupita Nyong'o's character Red speaks with an incredibly haunting croak, as Winston Duke's Abraham can only loudly wail, and Shahadi Wright Joseph's Umbrae keeps an incredibly unsettling smile on her face at all times. The movie's core family, the Wilsons, are chased and tormented by their monster-ish counterparts, which begins with a ton of suspense and then gives way to a whole lot of blood, death, and gore.
If specific things especially terrify you, then you can rest assured that Us does not have any devil stuff, occult stuff, ghost stuff, or really anything supernatural in those regards. It is really just about super-creepy killers that do not always seem to act human, so if that is something you think you can handle, then it is definitely worth checking out.
