ALAMY, ALLSTAR, AUGUST IMAGE
story from an African-American perspective, and to address
fears entertainingly.
“Tone was the big thing,” he says. “I placed it in line with
something that had a bit of a post-modern commentary on the
genre itself, and therefore a satirical element to it —Screamwas
a tonal guide. But also obviously [the film adaptations of] Ira
Levin’sRosemary’s BabyandThe Stepford Wives.”Get Out, he
says, couldn’t be too dark to be enjoyable, or too comedic that
it “sold itself out as a joke. It had to [walk] that perfect tonal
line.” Sketch comedy was a great training ground for that, he
says, as there he aspired to be irreverent about things we’re not
supposed to talk about, let alone laugh about. “The thoughts
and feelings that we repress and lie to ourselves about. That’s
where I’m drawn.”
He was onto something.Get Outmade an enormous profit
($255 million from a $4.5 million budget) and Peele became the
first black writer-director in history to land a $100 million debut.
The film was also nominated for four Oscars, Peele winning Best
Original Screenplay. There was huge pressure on him to follow it
up with a second smash, but he pulled it off withUs, another
startlingly original and scary satire. It also made $255 million,
scoring the biggest opening weekend ever for a horror film not
based on a known property.
“I thought that the majority of people would be expecting
some kind of ‘Get Out 2’ — another movie about evil white people,
and black people as heroes,” Peele reflects. “So the ability to give
them something else shows my audience, who I love dearly, that I’m
gonna continue the commitment to not get trapped in a hole.”
More than once, Peele had been struck by the fear of bumping
into the mirror image of himself. Doppelgängers, he believes, are
harbingers of death — there’s only room for one of us. This was
the inspiration forUs, for which he wanted to beef up his directing
chops, expanding scope and rooting it more
firmly in horror thanGet Out. As such,Us
is a home-invasion nightmare riddled with
unsettling monsters, ominous animals and evil
kids, all the while Peele twisting those tropes,
making them feel fresh again.
“I have a very complex relationship with the
idea of genre,” he explains of the ambitions he
had forUs. “On one hand I want to deliver what
I think of as the horror genre. On the other hand
I want to transcend it.” UnlikeGet Out,Usis not
ostensibly about race, but casting black people
— dark-skinned black people, at that — as the
leads, playing heroesandvillains, spoke volumes
in itself.Usis about privilege, with the Tethered
— downtrodden doppelgängers living in
underground tunnels, feeding off rabbits —
finally seizing the day and lobbing out brutal,
bloody truth bombs. In a time where fear of
outsiders is both encouraged and exploited,
Peele presents us with the shadow versions
of ourselves. The monsters are, well, us.
As a child, Peele realised that if he told scary
stories, he could harness fear. Exploring present-
day racism inGet Out, he changed people’s
perceptions of themselves, and withUs, he
created monsters that we identify with all
too well. His films, it seems, are an effort to
understand what’s happening out there. “Yeah,
part of the thrill of telling a scary story is being
able to be on side of the monsters, and almost
feeling a safety from that,” he says. “Any story
I tell has to begin with a primal and personal fear.
Making the movie will force me to analyse whatthat fear is about. And then I feel like I come out on the other side
less afraid of that thing. Much like the way a comedy sketch needs
to start with something that makes me laugh on a primal level,
a horror movie needs to start with something that truly terrifies
me, and more than I understand why.”•••
PEELE FEELS BUOYED by changes throughout the horror
genre of late. “There have been some really special horror movies
over the last five years, starting with David Robert Mitchell’sIt
Follows,” he says. “Jennifer Kent’sThe Babadookwas a special
movie for me.” He gave Lupita Nyong’o both films to watch before
rolling cameras onUs. He also loved Robert Eggers’The Witch,
and saysHereditary’s Ari Aster is “incredible”, raving about his
“extremely inventive” follow-up,Midsommar.
“There are some really beautiful horror films that to me show
off an artistry and a commitment to a cinematic experience that
the other genres haven’t been able to match,” he says, explaining
why this all fires him up so much that, not content with directing
his own horror pieces, he’s also producing projects prolifically.
They all connect. Already screening in America isThe Twilight
Zonereboot, in which Peele pulls double duties as host, following
in the footsteps of original creator Rod Serling. “It was a thrilling
show, scary and unnerving, but with a sense of humour,” he says
of the impact it had on him as a kid. “It just hit that unique spot.”
He’s also producingLovecraft Country, a TV adaptation of
Matt Ruff ’s 2016 novel in which a man looking for his father in the
sanctioned racism of 1950s Jim Crow America comes across some
Lovecraftian monsters. “It could be a companion piece toGet
Out,” says Peele, “because of the way it integrates horror, fantasy
and tales of wonder with a very real racial dynamic, and racial
crimes against humanity.” And he’s behind a new take on
Candyman, co-writing and producing a “spiritual
sequel” to what was “a very pivotal film for a
black horror fan” — he has noted that Bernard
Rose’s 1992 film explored fear of the ghetto. “I’m
extremely excited about it,” he says.
Meanwhile, he’s concocting his next moves
as director. Two of the projects he’s writing as we
speak are his next two directorial films, he says.
While he won’t divulge anything, expect him
to double-down while giving us what we least
expect. “I have more movies that I consider to be
about social demons,” he says. “The monsters that
exist between humans.” And as the discussion
turns again to fear, he says that he has something
even more terrifying on the cards.
Legend has it that withThe Shining,
Kubrick set out to make the scariest movie ever
made. That hasn’t been Peele’s mission. So far.
“I have yet to try to make the scariest movie ever
made,” he says, before offering a tantalising tease.
“I have some ideas. At some point you will see
my offering into the world of something that will
truly haunt. With a capital H. And that movie is
gonna be one that I expect horror audiences to
want to see, and the rest of the world to say, ‘No,
I’m good.’ There are some movies, likeThe
Exorcist,The Shining,The Blair Witch Project,
Paranormal Activity, that are just chilling above
all else.” He pauses. “And I wanna make a movie
like that too.”
You can bet that he will, and sooner rather
than later. He’s just busting to get it all out there,
this man who’s been fascinated by fear his whole
life. Conquering it. Harnessing it. Mastering it.Facing page:
Peele at the
2018 Academy
Awards.Below:
The revelatory
Get Out; A family
in torment inUs;
From Peele’s new
Twilight ZoneTV
series, Mike (Ike
Barinholtz) has
red on him.