Jordan Peele took to Twitter Sunday to confirm that his latest project, Us, is, in fact, a horror film. The short and sweet tweet is probably a response to the media’s tendency to “rebrand” a good horror movie as anything other than *gasp* a horror movie, because it can’t possibly be good if it’s horror…right?
‘Us’ is a horror movie.
— Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 17, 2019
But a recent trend of films, starting with Jordan Peele’s Get Out two years ago, are beginning to alter that stigma, happily and successfully binding horror with quality storytelling.
Though horror fans are ecstatic about the trend, and especially about the genre’s noticeable and welcome entry as a mainstream art form, Bloody Disgusting co-founder Brad Miska says that when it comes time for the awards season, being a horror fan can become really frustrating once people start classifying a horror movie as something else.
When Peele’s Get Out started getting several nominations, it was thrown into a different basket, labeled a “comedy” by the Golden Globes, and a “thriller” by everyone else. When it won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, it seemed nobody wanted to call it a “horror film.” The term “elevated horror” (used to describe other good movies like Hereditary and Suspiria), while closer to the truth, is still used to separate a project from the horror genre.
Us, which will be released this Friday and is already getting some awards buzz after its SXSW premiere, is being called a “thriller” by some. But it looks like Jordan Peele isn’t going to let that happen this time. He’s standing by his vision for Us and after this tweet, nobody can rightfully call the movie anything else.
