By MICHAEL GINGOLD
Merry Christmas, everyone! Horror fans are getting a special gift this morning: Universal Pictures has premiered the trailer to Jordan Peele’s eagerly awaited US. Check it out, along with some words from Peele, after the jump.
Peele’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning, boundary-breaking hit GET OUT sees release March 15, with Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (AQUAMAN) starring. The story follows a a family who take a vacation at a beach house, where they are visited by strangers who prove to be their own doppelgangers.
As opposed to the debate over genre placement that greeted GET OUT, Peele confirmed to a group of journalists who previewed the preview, “It is a horror film. I dedicated a lot of myself to creating a new horror mythology, and a new monster. I think that monsters and stories about monsters are one of our best ways of getting at deeper truths and facing our fears as a society. It was very important for me to have a black family at the center of a horror film…but it’s also important to note that this movie, unlike GET OUT, is not about race. It is instead about something that I feel has become an undeniable truth, and that is the simple fact that we are our own worst enemies.”
The writer/director described US as “a labor of love” and is excited to share the first taste of it with audiences during this festive season. “As families are sitting down and celebrating the holidays, they’ll get this nice, eerie, creepy-ass gift,” he said. Look for more on US at this site as the release approaches.