Us | 2019 | R | – 2.8.8

Why is “Us” rated R? The MPAA rating has been assigned for “violence/terror, and language.” The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes a kissing scene and conversations about sex, cleavage revealing outfits and bathing suits, many scenes of people attacking and killing other people with blood and gore, many scenes of unusual and creepy behavior, and over 30 F-words. Read our parents’ guide below for details on sexual content, violence & strong language.”

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A woman (Lupita Nyong’o) visits the seaside home where she grew up accompanied by her husband (Winston Duke) and children. Haunted by a childhood funhouse trauma near the home, she becomes increasingly paranoid and when masked strangers attack and the masks come off, the strangers look like herself, her husband and their children — but with unusual names and personalities. Also with Evan Alex, Shahadi Wright, Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker. Directed by Jordan Peele. [Running Time: 2:00]

Us SEX/NUDITY 2

 – A man and a woman kiss for a few seconds. A man tells his wife he will meet her in the magic room (it is the bedroom, implying sex); he is seen wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and lies down facing the camera with his legs spread (we can see bare legs to mid-thigh and the outline of genitals in his shorts) but there are no sexual images or contact.
► In a couple of beach scenes several women wear skimpy bikinis that reveal bare backs, cleavage, abdomens and bare legs to the hips. A few teen girls and two women wear a series of short shorts that reveal their upper thighs. A woman’s V-neck top reveals moderate cleavage and another woman wears a halter top that reveals her bare back and cleavage. A few men are seen shirtless (their bare chests, abdomens and backs are seen) in a long shot on a beach.
► A man indicates he would have sex with his wife’s double, if the double exists, making a popping sound with his mouth; his wife looks disgusted.

Us VIOLENCE/GORE 8

 - A teen girl chases another teen girl outside at night, catches up, stands on a car roof, and pulls out a long pair of shears until a man shouts at her and she jumps down, stabs him and he falls dead (no blood is shown) as the other girl runs away. A woman with a fireplace poker enters a funhouse and walks down dark stairs to a sub-basement and then down an escalator, she passes empty rooms and a room where men and women seem to be eating raw chicken and finds a woman drawing a line of stick figures on a chalkboard and cutting out paper dolls, and then cutting them to bits with long shears; the second woman dances through lines of school desks and struggles with and slaps the other woman, throws her on the floor and kicks her in the stomach, making the victim shout in pain; they struggle, fistfight, and stab at each other with shears and a poker in a hallway, among large rabbits, and in a long shot one woman is stabbed several times and slammed into a wall. A woman stabs a poker completely through another woman (we see some blood), who grunts, falls to a seated position, spits blood and whistles; the other woman strangles her with a chain, breaks her neck with a loud crunch, and screams toward the ceiling. A teen girl arms herself with a golf club and a young boy picks up a large geode rock as they walk past blood streaks on walls to find two teen girls and hit them several times in the head with their weapons, killing them (one girl falls over a balcony); the teen girl with the golf club hits the other girl just beyond a doorway and we hear crunching as blood splatters on the walls. A woman ties another woman to the footboard of a bed and threatens her with shears, then cuts her own cheek to produce blood flow; the attacker stands at a window and from outside we see but cannot hear her cry and laugh while inside the room she struggles with a teen girl as the tied-up woman tries to free herself and a young boy kills the attacker by hitting her in the head with a large rock (everyone's clothing is stained with blood). A woman hits another woman on the head with a pot and they struggle, rolling on the floor; one woman lies behind a counter and the other woman stabs and kills her (the counter hides the action), but we hear the strikes. A man and a woman are shown after they have been stabbed and the man lies dead in a pool of blood and the woman crawls through blood toward the camera, panicked.
► The power goes out in a house and family members shudder; the father takes a ball bat outside to scare off four people in the driveway, saying "I will break your head," but runs back inside when the adult male of the group chases him and a woman in the house calls 911 and shouts as a teen girl and young boy cry; the man from outside opens the door, grabs the other man's bat and hits him hard in the knee (he shouts in pain) and he pulls him by the injured leg off-screen and out the back door where he rolls him down the steps (we see the injured man limping later and using a bat as a cane); the attacker screeches and holds a long pair of shears near the other man's face and then knocks him unconscious.
► A teen girl drives an SUV into another teen girl; she lands on the windshield and stabs through the cracking glass with shears (no person is stabbed) and she is struck again and thrown into a tree, where she hangs upside down; a woman gets out of the vehicle holding a fireplace poker and finds the girl, who snarls and swipes at her, and then dies with her eyes open and blood on her face. A car is shown in flames and a boy wearing a mask stands in front of it, snapping his fingers; he holds up a match and walks backward, ready to ignite spilled gasoline, but he catches fire, falls down, and is consumed in flames. Two teen girls stand on a balcony and in a long-shot stab two other teen girls in the throat with shears (we see no blood as they collapse).
► A man wrapped up in a plastic tarp wakes up in a motor boat at night, he punches another man in the head knocking him into the water and the first man also falls into the water. A family of four rides away from a dock in a motor boat, while a woman and a snarling young boy stand on the dock. A man on a boat screeches as another man shoots him in the chest with a flare gun; the two men struggle and the second man escapes. A woman forces another woman to handcuff herself to a coffee table and slams the victim's face onto the glass top, cracking it but causing no injury; when the attacker leaves the victim uses a fireplace poker to break the legs of the table, freeing herself.
► We see dead bodies along streets, a boardwalk and at a carnival, some with blood on their clothing. Two boys sit in a dark closet and one boy lights a match and removes his pressure-bandage mask to reveal hideous rippled scars from his nose to his chin and around his cheeks; the other boy locks him in the closet and runs until the boy in the closet is rescued by his mother, who walks into another room and cuts the head off a stuffed toy bunny. A woman hits a man in the forehead with a poker and we see some blood flow as he walks away.
► Four people holding hands stand in a family's driveway at night (their faces and bodies are doubles for the family inside the house, except for with wicked smiles); they each carry a pair of long, sharp shears that they use to attack their doubles in later scenes and the mother doppelganger is the only one with a voice and speaks with a deep, raspy voice, grimaces, cries, and snaps her fingers in several scenes (the other doubles only screech and grunt, which they do on and off-screen). A doppelganger boy has a scarred lower face and scurries around on all fours and snaps his fingers often, grunting and growling; it is implied that he once burned down a house.
► In two flashbacks a young girl wanders away from her parents at a boardwalk at night and walks on an empty beach as heat lightning flashes several times, and we hear muffled thunder and rain begins to fall; the girl walks into a funhouse called "Shaman Vision Quest" and hears a Native American voice narrating along the hall of mirrors as a mechanical owl pops out and hoots causing the girl to jump, she whistles, and someone off-screen whistles; the girl walks hard into a mirror (she is not hurt), she looks into a mirror and sees the back of her own head and a close-up of her face shows horror as the scene ends. A flashback shows a girl's reflection in a mirror and her face has a wicked smile and fang-like teeth as it reaches out and chokes the real girl and then drags her off-screen; the real girl is then seen wearing different clothing and handcuffed to a bunk bed while the reflection girl finishes donning the real girl's clothing and leaves as the real girl grunts and struggles, but cannot free herself.
► A flashback scene shows an owl hooting and a woman smashes it with a fireplace poker. A man and a woman stand with shears in their hands and blood spots on their faces. A young boy wearing a mask that has fangs hides in a cupboard and bounces out at his teen sister, making her shout; she locks him in a closet where he screams and pounds the door until his mom lets him out. A woman runs and grabs a young boy, charging off-screen with him.
► A group of friends on a beach witness alarming events: A Frisbee flies fast between two women and nearly hits them as one of the women shouts; a man with scruffy hair and wearing a tattered trench coat stands facing away from the camera with his hands out to the sides and a close-up showing blood dripping from one of his hands; a young boy approaches and the camera cuts away; we see a drawing a young boy made of himself standing in front of a man, obscuring his head and body, but with one hand to the side, dripping blood; a family drives by an ambulance where a man is being loaded into the back on a gurney but we do not see an injury; and we see a police cruiser with lights flashing and hear sirens.
► The back wall of a classroom is filled with large white rabbits in cages and we later see them hopping around a classroom and through hallways where men and women seem entranced and zombie-like, pretending to ride a roller coaster (they are shaking their bodies up and down) and a carousel (they are walking in circles).
► Two flashbacks show a young girl staring into space as her mother cries when a therapist says her daughter suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder after a horrific experience in a funhouse. A man and a woman argue about watching their daughter more closely and the mother blames the father for the child's PTSD. A man and a woman argue a few times. A man and a woman argue for several seconds. Three men shadow-box a wall. Two men push a third man several times.
► A TV announcement shows a line of cloned people lining up across a city, hand in hand, as an announcer says they are killing other people in a terrorist attack and one person charges the camera, which goes black. We see a long line of men and women clones joining hands across a city and the nearby mountains.
► Two teen girls simultaneously tell a boy to pee in the ocean and we see him leaving a port-a-potty. A song on the radio includes the lyrics "take a whiz."

Us LANGUAGE 8

 - About 33 F-words and its derivatives, 15 scatological terms, 7 anatomical terms, 3 mild obscenities, 4 derogatory terms for African-Americans, name-calling (crazy, spoiled, monster, weird, weirdos, Boogey Man family), exclamations (shut-up, wow), 3 religious profanities (GD), 10 religious exclamations (Oh My God, Oh God, Jesus, Holy [scatological term deleted], I Saw God, "Jeremiah 11:11" printed on three cardboard signs [verse is about humanity's destruction with God refusing to help]). | profanity glossary |

Us SUBSTANCE USE

 - A woman says that she used a little bit of a drug but does not mention the name and we do not see it (she does not appear intoxicated), a teen girl says that a song is about drugs and her dad says it is not. A woman drinks a glass and a half of wine and says she thinks about margaritas, a man says that there is a "full bar here" (on a beach) and we see a bottle of wine as he pours a glass, and a man drinks two short glasses of whiskey. A man says that he is going outside for a smoke (we do not see him smoke).

Us DISCUSSION TOPICS

 - Psychological trauma, PTSD, paranoia, fears, apprehension, tension, racial tensions, people without a voice in society, cloning, belief in the soul and God, evil mirror universe personalities, coincidences, symbolism, home invasions, violence, survival, protecting one's family, what it means to be American, Hands Across America.

Us MESSAGE

 - Minority oppression, religion and cloning issues can bring out the dark side of America.