Universal has released the first trailer for Jordan Peele's new horror-thriller, Us. Peele, of course, made his name starring opposite Keegan-Michael Key in the Key & Peele sketch comedy series (much of which Peele and Key wrote themselves). After once again sharing the screen with Key in the 2016 action-comedy Keanu (which he also cowrote), Peele changed gears and tried his hand at horror with 2017's Get Out. The rest, as they say, is history, as Peele went on to land three Oscar nominations (plus a win for writing) for his efforts on the film, which became a runaway commercial success and critical darling.

After being courted for studio projects like Akira, Peele announced plans to work on another original horror movie instead. The film, which has since been titled Us, features Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong'o and her Black Panther costar Winston Duke as a married couple whose family summer vacation takes a turn for the (nightmarishly) worst. First look images and details from Us made their way online last week, ahead of the movie's trailer being released just in time for Christmas.

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Universal has now made good on its promise and dropped the Us trailer online. Take a look below, then read on for the film's official synopsis.

After sending shockwaves across contemporary culture and setting a new standard for provocative, socially-conscious horror films with his directorial debut, Get Out, Academy Award®-winning visionary Jordan Peele returns with another original nightmare that he has written, directed and produced.

Set in present day along the iconic Northern California coastline, Us, from Monkeypaw Productions, stars Oscar® winner Lupita Nyong’o as Adelaide Wilson, a woman returning to her beachside childhood home with her husband, Gabe (Black Panther’s Winston Duke), and their two children (Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex) for an idyllic summer getaway.

Haunted by an unexplainable and unresolved trauma from her past and compounded by a string of eerie coincidences, Adelaide feels her paranoia elevate to high-alert as she grows increasingly certain that something bad is going to befall her family.

After spending a tense beach day with their friends, the Tylers (Emmy winner Elisabeth Moss, Tim Heidecker, Cali Sheldon, Noelle Sheldon), Adelaide and her family return to their vacation home. When darkness falls, the Wilsons discover the silhouette of four figures holding hands as they stand in the driveway. Us pits an endearing American family against a terrifying and uncanny opponent: doppelgängers of themselves.

The trailer footage and premise for Us bring Get Out to mind in a few ways. Both movies start out with a couple (here, one with kids) taking what seems like a fairly innocent trip, before the story goes in an increasingly strange and ultimately horrifying direction. The Us trailer also features the same awkward comedy as Get Out (prior to the film's monsters showing up) and some of the imagery here (like the crying Nyong'o) is reminiscent of the iconography from Peele's directorial debut.

Where the "monsters" in Get Out were affluent white people who saw black people as commodities, the creatures in Us (which Peele calls "The Tethered") are seemingly supernatural in origin. Peele clearly has a specific metaphor in mind with the film's doppelgänger villains and the trailer contains further hints of the movie's symbolism (The Tethered's scissors, the white rabbits). All in all, the Us trailer does its job and leaves you wanting to learn more about Peele's latest twisted vision.

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Source: Universal

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