The Monthly — April 2019

April 2019

Up All Night

Bring Your Son to Work Day

Better Days

Campus to Tribal Council

Comedian Jen Spyra finds her voice among the laughs p.5

Norhtwestern web series nominated to Tribeca Film Festival p.8

NU student Charlie Hall on “Veep� and a future in comedy p.10

Hannah Shapiro talks tribes, alliances and Jeff Probst p.11

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THE MONTHLY Staff of The Monthly Issue 19

Charlotte Walsh Monthly Editor Catherine Buchaniec Roxanne Panas Designers

Emily Chaiet Marissa Martinez Ally Mauch Owen Stidman Crystal Wall Writers Cover photo: Source: Courtesy of Jen Spyra

05 Better Days 08 Bring Your Son to Work Day 10 From Campus to Tribal Council 11 Open Tab 14 Reel Thoughts 15 Contents

Up All Night

Editor:

Sweet, sweet Monthly — happy birthday. You’ve given me more than you know: my first celeb story, the first compliment on my reporting from my grandmother and some of my first friends at Northwestern. So now it’s only fitting that I give something back to you.

Working on The Monthly, I’ve been lucky enough to write under the direction and tutelage of an incredible bunch of women (sorry Stav!) who were not only mentors, but friends. Jane, Madeleine, Andrea and Crystal have shaped not only how I write and how I report, but also how I crack a joke or connect with younger reporters. Whether it’s through feeding me a home-cooked meal or getting together for A&E Cozy dinners and Oscar viewings, I’ve learned a lot from these women. I know how much I appreciated it when I was a new staffer, and how much I still do to this day.

And this group of women have not only helped me but have helped The Daily as a whole. Two years ago, The Monthly was little more than an abstract concept for a feature magazine. We didn’t know if it would fade out, as so many well-thought-out concepts at The Daily do. But thanks in part to this group, it’s grown, massively. We’ve interviewed musicians, actors and even ASMRtists, all to make The Monthly a magazine people actually want to read.

Furthermore, we strive to put together a magazine each month that is not only interesting to read but is reflective of the diverse community that makes up the Northwestern arts and entertainment scene. But I have to admit: sometimes we fail you.

Sometimes it’s out of our hands — a source won’t get back to us, a story will fall through — but other times it’s entirely our fault. Sometimes we’ll select a story that is not representative of Northwestern’s community, or we’ll lose sight of why representation in journalism is actually incredibly meaningful.

In the Monthly’s two-year history, we have featured five women on the cover out of 18 issues. We have had just three people of color on the cover. That’s a problem — especially since the magazine is coming from the strong group of women I know and love, and because we all know better.

I love The Monthly. I love opening it up and smelling the newsprint; I love reading stories I would never have even heard of had it not been for this magazine; I love seeing the incredible spreads our design team puts together. And because I love The Monthly, I want to make it better.

The Northwestern community deserves a magazine that represents them. It’s all well and great that we’re turning two — but our legacy means little if we don’t highlight an arts and entertainment culture that is inclusive to everyone, not just a select few. And now that we’ve grown older, hopefully, we’ll become wiser, too.

So happy birthday, Monthly.

To many more years of celeb gossip and spicy takes, but hopefully to many more years of diversity, too.

UP night all

Northwestern alum and comedian Jen Spyra on standing out among the laughs Photo courtesy of Jen Spyra

5

Photos courtesy of Jen Spyra

J

en Spyra (Communication M.F.A. ’12) is in a pitch meeting for the Late Show with Stephen Colbert. The talk show hasn’t aired yet, but Spyra already has an idea: a parody of Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle brand “Goop.” Colbert names the fake brand “Covetton House,” and the sketch is born.

These kinds of sketches — takes on pop culture and current events — are Spyra’s comedic specialty. Since starting her career as one of only one of two women on staff at The Onion, Spyra said she feels her power as a writer comes from having unique ideas in an industry dominated by men.

“We naturally had different areas of expertise and different interests and passions than the guys on staff, it was really valued because we were essentially filling holes,” Spyra said. “So far I’ve only had this wonderful experience of feeling like my voice was necessary and that people really appreciated having a minority voice.”

Through working for publications like The New Yorker, The New York Times, McSweeney’s and, most notably, The Onion — where she served as a senior writer for almost three years — Spyra has used this voice to fill gaps in the industry. And after hearing that Colbert (Communication ‘86) would be taking over the Late Show, Spyra knew that’s where she wanted to be. She has now been a staff writer for four years.

However, Spyra’s comedic roots began in Chicago, where she was a member of the iO Chicago improv team after she finished her undergrad at Barnard College.

“That was my entrée into the world of comedy,” she said. “I have found that the basics of improv are invaluable to writing.

You find a game and a scene and you just play it by escalating it and hyping it, and that’s exactly what you do in short form humor pieces.”

While she was performing, Spyra applied and got into Northwestern for graduate school and began studying to get her Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing for the Screen and Stage.

Zayd Dohrn, the chair of the department of Radio, Television, and Film, taught Spyra during her time at NU. He said her witty, sarcastic remarks always made an impact on the classes she was in.

After graduating and beginning her work

at The Onion, Spyra would send Dohrn her articles after they were published. While the publication does not have bylines, Dohrn could tell which works were hers due to her unique voice as a writer.

“Her work is just absolutely funny and smart,” Dohrn said. “I never know what stuff is hers on Colbert, but I think I can tell because she’s got a voice. There are certain jokes that just sound like her.”

Some of Spyra’s favorite sketches for The Late Show include “Dialogue with a Demon: The Dick Nighttime Murders” — a parody of Netflix’s Ted Bundy documentary — and the “Wiggles” series — a Late Show segment in which Colbert sings “cute,

she said. “That’s the sensibility that runs through the book. There’s no character to carry you through. It’s all different sorts of genres and eras. It’s a mish-mash.”

And although she enjoys writing longform pieces, Spyra said she feels most at home on Twitter, where she has over 22 thousand followers. Just one look at her tweets, and it’s clear that she doesn’t hold back.

“It’s not like I *want* someone to deface my home with antisemitic graffiti. It’s just that I’ve always wanted to use a pressure washer,” she tweeted in March.

Spyra said her Twitter account is a place for her work and her work only. It is her

“At the end of the day, people enjoy having that day’s outrageous news digested for them.”

Jen Spyra Communication ’12

vanilla” songs only to be interrupted by rap group Run the Jewels.

Dohrn said her talent goes beyond comedy into other genres, so it doesn’t surprise him that Spyra now consistently writes about politics.

Spyra said her work at The Onion helped her prepare to pitch ideas for the Late Show.

While at the publication, Spyra said she learned how to find pitches by reading the news and how to make her voice heard — skills she uses frequently at the Late Show.

However, in her latest work, Spyra is focusing on comedy unrelated to current events. She is writing a still-untitled book of comedic short stories — her first published book — which will feature some of her unpublished material as well as a few short pieces she published in The New Yorker.

“I would sort of describe the comedy as a surreal dark comedy with a light touch,”

space to flex her comedic muscles, even with only 280 characters.

“You can experiment with your own voice, and you don’t really have to run it past anyone else,” she said. “No one has to say yes to you doing it.”

But every day at the Late Show, Spyra said she feels her voice is heard. Certain ideas or sketches, she said, are only thought of by women.

Most of all, Spyra says it’s cathartic to be able to poke fun at the day’s current events, whether it’s the Mueller report on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election or one of President Donald Trump’s varied speeches.

“At the end of the day, people enjoy having that day’s outrageous news digested for them,” she said. “People enjoy the sense of community that you get with the Late Show where we’re all outraged by something, and it’s fun to see it digested in a smart, funny way.” ◊

7

Better Days Are Here Again Northwestern web series on day of awkward encounters to premiere at Tribeca Film Festival — by Charlotte Walsh

T

he summer before his senior year at Northwestern, Nabeel Muscatwalla (Communication ’18) watched a web series that was getting a lot of acclaim, but which he said wasn’t exactly a high-budget production.

“I didn’t think it was bad certainly, but I definitely thought ‘Oh, this is something I could do,’” Muscatwalla said. “I was like, ‘This is where the standard is. I could definitely do something to meet this standard.’”

From this, “Better Days” — a studentcreated, five-part web series — was born.

The series focuses on Armaan, a “Muslim-American twenty-something” played by Muscatwalla, who navigates a string of awkward encounters over the course of a truly terrible day, according to the series’ Facebook page. The series was recently selected to screen at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival on April 25 and 30 as a part of Tribeca N.O.W., a program, which aims to highlight new online work.

Filmed over the course of two weekends during the Spring Quarter 2018, the majority of the series’ cast and crew is Northwestern students. A rough cut was screened at the 2018 Studio 22 Productions premiere, and

“

“The fact that this is a student project just shows what students are capable of.”

Adam Turkel Communication ’18

the series had its official world premiere at Los Angeles’ HollyWeb Festival late last month.

The episodes focus on different slices of Armaan’s day — following him from his therapist to a coffee shop to his job teaching a kids’ improv group — and take inspiration from awkward, anxiety-ridden interactions Muscatwalla said he had in his own life. When he thought of making these exchanges into a web series, Muscatwalla began documenting the conversations and then finding the humor in them.

Muscatwalla co-directed the series with longtime friend Adam Turkel Photo Source: David Gordon

“

(Communication ’18), whom he recruited because of his experience directing short films at Northwestern. Turkel said he was inspired by the project because of its slice-of-life narrative style — similar to shows like “Master of None” — which he said had not yet been attempted at Northwestern.

Turkel said the show is inspired by Muscatwalla’s own experiences — something he said has not often been explored.

“There’s something kind of refreshing about these slice-of-life, awkwardencounter-type of shows when it is a nonwhite protagonist,” Turkel said. “There’s something to that that we still have not seen in the history of that kind of medium.”

“Better Days” was funded by grants from Northwestern’s Department of Radio, Television and Film as well as the Multicultural Filmmakers Collective, an organization that promotes and supports multicultural filmmakers at Northwestern.

Turkel said the funding, as well as the fact that “Better Days” is a student-run production, make the Tribeca premiere even more exciting, as the project is a “Northwestern baby.”

“The fact that this is a student project just shows what students are capable of,” Turkel said. “That was what made it gratifying — that this is really just a bunch of kids that wanted to make something. So it’s nice to see that that can actually stand up to what other folks are doing.”

Communication senior Amara Leonard — who acted in the show alongside Muscatwalla — agreed, saying it was exciting for a group of students to create something of this magnitude. And the web series was the perfect medium for these ideas, she said, as it’s a way to work around the challenges that have historically come with pitching and producing series through a television studio. She cited “Broad City” and “High Maintenance” as examples of two shows that got their start as web series before going mainstream.

“It’s a way for young, emerging artists with smaller budgets that have all these great ideas to get their projects out there,” she said.

Leonard played Natalie, a seemingly normal girl-next-door barista until some

“...we have years of friendship under our belt to contribute to this chemistry on camera and that’s kind of unmatched.”

Nabeel Muscatwalla Communication ‘18

of her stranger personality traits are revealed. She became involved in “Better Days” because she’d previously worked with Muscatwalla in comedy groups like Mee-Ow and the Titanic Players. The majority of the cast was recruited from student groups like these, which Leonard and Muscatwalla both said made for a fun time on set.

“It never really felt like a burden or like this thing that I had to do just because it was like me and my best friends, making something that we thought was cool and funny,” Muscatwalla said. “A lot of the appeal, I think, of some of the themes is like the rapport that we will have one another ... because we have years of friendship under our belt to contribute to this chemistry on camera and that’s kind of unmatched.”

Mustcatwalla said the fact that “Better Days” is premiering at Tribeca Film Festival is exciting. Currently, the series encompasses five episodes that run around seven minutes each, but Muscatwalla said he hopes to make more.

When making the series, Muscatwalla said he hoped people would simply take the time to watch it. The Tribeca premiere, he said, will put the series in front of even more people — and he hopes it can act as a comfort to them.

The series stemmed from a place of anxiety and worry in social situations, Muscatwalla said, but this is not where it ends. “Better Days” does not just poke fun at the people responsible for the awkwardness, but reminds viewers these interactions are not important in the long run.

“I hope this can be sort of comforting … like that even at the worst case of day to day life we are all there with you. We all feel this sh--t,” Muscatwalla said. “But you can have a really not great day and still have a great life.”◊

9

Northwestern’s Charlie Hall

guest stars on Veep and delves into the world of comedy

BRING YOUR SON TO WORK DAY — by Charlotte Walsh and Marissa Martinez

10

F

amed actress and former Northwestern student Julia Louis-Dreyfus has a nickname for her son Charlie Hall: “Cha.” And although Hall (Communication ‘19) has been called this by his mom for years, he said it was strange to hear it coming from Louis-Dreyfus while she was giving him stage directions on a recent episode of “Veep.”

“I thought it was really funny because it’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s my mom,’” Hall said. “It was funny to see her in a professional environment where I was in that professional environment not just as a bystander.”

The forward on the Northwestern men’s basketball team took on a very different role this summer when he guest starred on an episode of his mother’s political satire show, “Veep.” The episode, which premiered April 7, features Hall as an over-exuberant fan of an influential political donor, Felix Wade, who is hosting an Aspen retreat that includes presidential candidates Selina Meyer (Louis-Dreyfus) and one of her opponents.

Wade, played by William Fichtner, has a fan club of “much younger” guys in the episode — including Hall’s character — who follow him around the retreat. Although he only speaks twice during the the episode, Hall said Louis-Dreyfus insults him after he leaves the scene, an experience he said he was excited to see on camera.

“Veep” executive producer David Mandel said the show was looking to find someone to fill the part when Louis-Dreyfus heard about the role and volunteered Hall. Mandel agreed with the choice.

“I don’t know if he’s so much about the acting

or if he just really wanted to wear the tightest shirts he’s ever worn,” Mandel said. “He did a great job. This is gonna sound ridiculous, but I guess if I were a wealthy, crazy billionaire who wanted to surround myself with younger boys, I think Charlie would be an excellent pick.”

Hall said being part of the “Veep” cast was different than acting on other shows because many of the staff writers stayed on set, reworking the script down to the last minute — an atypical practice, according to Hall. He said his lines changed many times, but it was “relatively simple” to act them out once they were finalized.

“It’s really cool because they’re watching every take, and any time they think of any sort of ad lib or line change, they tell it to you,” Hall said.

“I had a bunch of different alts that I ended up doing, so that way, you end up interacting with the writers more than you do most other shows.”

Mandel said this is typical of “Veep,” as he said writers try to constantly improve scenes by trying out alternative jokes and improvisations. Hall took it all in stride, he said, calling his timing “perfect.”

But the person who knew him best on set was just excited to see him on set in a new role.

“Julia is obviously a multi-multi-awardwinning actress and she is executive producer of the show and all those things,” Mandel said, “but when her son was on camera, she was just glued to the monitor taking pictures with her iPhone like anybody else’s mom.”

This is not the first time Hall has done comedy. In high school, he posted comedy videos on YouTube, and works for Northwestern’s athletics department while on the basketball team, participating in sketches and interviews.

Associate Director of Communications for Northwestern Athletics Ray O’Connell said Hall’s personality is “as unique as it gets,” which he said is ideal for sports comedy. In the past, Hall has collaborated with the athletics department on sketches for the NESPYs — a student-athlete award show playing off ESPN’s ESPYS — and comedic interviews during Northwestern’s 2017 NCAA tournament run.

O’Connell said Hall has “no on- and offswitch” — he’s always trying crack a joke or creating a bit with teammates and staff members.

This upbeat and entertaining personality, O’Connell said, is what he thinks will make Hall successful in the entertainment industry.

“He's just that funny. He's just that creative and he works hard,” O’Connell said. “I think he would be successful in that industry regardless of who his parents are.” ◊ Source: Colleen Hayes/HBO

Q&A — by Crystal Wall

Communication alum Hannah Shapiro goes from campus to tribal council Famed reality television show “Survivor” has been a part of Hannah Shapiro’s (Communication ’14) life for a long time. When Shapiro was 14, she and a friend would crush Oreos and eat them with gummy worms when players were starving, then order a grand sushi dinner when the competitors won rewards. During her time at Northwestern, she took a class that used Survivor as a reality television case study, where students were split into tribes and competed for quiz scores. And in 2016, Shapiro — at 24 years old — tied for second place in the show’s 33rd season — a ten-year dream coming full circle.

The Daily: What was the audition process like for you?

time) is spent in downtime with people intensely getting to know each other without a phone and with a purpose. I remember the first couple days and we just voted out our first person, it was at night and we built this big bonfire. We all started playing dirty charades. Something like that would never make television … but two or three years later I still feel like it’s one of my favorite memories.

The Daily: What was your biggest takeaway from your time on the show?

Shapiro: When I applied to Northwestern, my Common App essay was about how I was going to be on “Survivor.” Then, at Northwestern, Max Dawson taught a class about “Survivor.”

When I moved to LA, I reached out to him because I wanted job advice. He didn’t respond. It turns out he was on “Survivor.” We grabbed lunch and it took him the entire lunch to convince me.

Then, the next words out of his mouth were, “Of all my students, you’re the one I would love to help get on the show.” So, I ended up going to his premiere party for his season of “Survivor,” and I met a casting person. A long year later, I sent her another video.

Then I ended up at final casting week...and then three months later was on a plane to Fiji.

Shapiro: I think “Survivor” forces you to talk to people from all over the country, and it forces you to listen to people’s stories and where they’re coming from in a way that you never would in real life. During the 2016 election, my season was airing — and as the results for the presidency were coming in, it kept cutting to a promo of me saying, “I’m just mad at everyone.” “Survivor” introduced me to this diverse group of people in a time where our country … and people are becoming more and more separate from each other.

The Daily: What was the experience like for you as a viewer turned competitor?

Shapiro If you look at the final three from our season, no matter what you think of all three of us, I think we were all trying to tell what our story was and that helped us with relationships and helped us move through the game. I think the biggest thing to remember is that everyone out there believes they’re the protagonist — everyone thinks they are going to win the season. So if you can go out there and treat each person with the understanding that they believe they are the hero of the story, then you can figure out how people are going to act. ◊

Shapiro: It really is like stepping into your television — like the magic you see on TV. It’s even more beautiful than it is on television. I think the thing that is probably odd is that there really is so much time — the thing you’re seeing on television is a highlights reel of what actually happened. So much of (this Source: Hannah Shapiro

The Daily: You made it to the final three — do you have any tips for future “Survivor” players?

88th Waa-Mu shines a light on untold stories of women

12

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Photos: Evan Robinson-Johnson/Daily Senior Staffer

13

The North Shore’s hidden gem restaurant might just be a bowling alley Picture this: It’s your birthday and you want to celebrate, but it’s also a Wednesday and no one is looking to go clubbing in downtown Chicago. My suggestion? Bring your friends to Classic Bowl — a bowling alley in Morton Grove that may be in the middle of nowhere but is definitely worth your time.

Before you stop reading, you should know that connected to the unassuming Classic Bowl — brightly lit and filled mainly with middle-aged North Shore residents in bowling leagues — is Boba Burger. It’s an Asian burger joint serving up everything from chili fries and jalapeño poppers to kimchi-topped hot dogs and “Hawaiian” burgers with pineapple and spam.

Recently, a few friends and I found ourselves in the birthday-on-a-Wednesday situation and descended upon Classic Bowl, mostly because we thought it would be funny. We figured we would order a couple drinks at the bar, bowl — terribly — and maybe grab a bite to eat at what seemed like a mediocre fast food restaurant.

What we got — Boba Burger — turned out to be so much more than mediocre.

Inside, it looks like a typical burger spot: white tile floors, a few tables and black vinyl chairs. A hanging sign at the far end of the bowling alley pointed us straight to the large yellow counter where the magic happens.

While vigorously bowling and sipping on once-cold drinks, you’re bound to get tired and hungry. This is especially true since Classic Bowl forbids the use of bumpers.

(You can do without them, I promise!)

When the hunger pangs hit after you celebrate your first strike, follow that sign and don’t let Boba Burger’s vast, eclectic menu get the best of you.

After glancing at the options, I stuck to what I thought would be safe — chicken

tenders and onion rings. My friends went with mozzarella sticks, burgers, hot dogs and fries. For a more adventurous meal, be sure to look to the inventive Asian-inspired dishes, like the Seoul burger (beef patty, cheese, kimchi, bacon and fried egg) or the Tokyo dog (tempura fried hot dog, wasabi aioli and nori).

When the food was ready, the cashier called out my name and I couldn’t run fast enough to the counter in my bowling shoes to pick up my cafeteria tray. At first sight, I immediately knew Boba Burger was going to be something special. The onion rings were solid: two layers of thick, soft onion impeccably battered and fried, and my friends raved about the Hawaiian burger — noting how the perfectly sweet teriyaki-glazed pineapple complements the sizable slice of fried spam.

The chicken tenders, however, were unlike any I had ever seen. I would compare them more to a chicken cutlet or chicken Milanese than “tenders.” They’re massive pieces of almost impossibly thin chicken breasts, lightly breaded, seasoned and fried. When you get them, you have to dip them in the provided barbeque sauce or ranch dressing and prepare yourself to tell everyone you know about how good they are.

Even better, make a friend order the mozzarella sticks and soak the thin, crispy chicken in the

— by Ally Mauch marinara dipping sauce.

The prices at Boba Burger are more than reasonable for the amount of good food you get: the chicken tenders, along with most of the smaller dishes, are $4, and the burgers range from $6 to $8.

So hitch a ride west to Morton Grove, and you just may find that you’ll eat some of the North Shore’s best food surrounded by bowling balls and the sweet sounds of pins hitting shiny wooden lanes. ◊

Reel Thoughts

n

by Owe

n

Stidma

‘Us’ seeks to scare and intrigue – and succeeds at both

Pictures Barius/Universal Source: Claudette

This piece includes spoilers for the movie “Us.”

U

nlike other reviews, this piece will not compare “Get Out” to “Us.” The former, Jordan Peele’s directorial debut, is a satirical commentary on American racism first and a horror movie second. The latter, Peele’s second film, with its use of typical horror conventions, is primarily of that genre, with commentary on identity and American social inequality woven throughout. Peele’s two films are profoundly different from each other, so comparing them makes little sense. Instead of comparing the two films, this review will treat “Us” as its own entity.

“Us” follows Adelaide Wilson (Lupita Nyong’o), a woman haunted by a meeting with her doppelgänger at a carnival during her childhood. When she, her husband and her two children take a trip to Santa Cruz, they are attacked by a mysterious family of four who reveal themselves to be the Wilsons’ doppelgängers. Adelaide’s doppelgänger — referred to as “Red” — tells the Wilsons that every American has a doppelgänger who is trapped in a network of underground tunnels.

These doppelgängers, who call themselves “the Tethered,” plan to kill their surface-dwelling doubles.

The rest of the movie is a gory, disturbing thrill ride that culminates in an unsettling ending: in the film’s final scenes, we discover the Adelaide we see as an adult is not the Adelaide

we saw as a child at the carnival: she is one of the Tethered.

Peele’s choice to use doppelgängers as the evil in “Us” forces viewers to examine the evil in themselves. The fact that the Tethered live underground and are forgotten by their surface-dwelling counterparts is representative of humans’ inability to be introspective and examine their own flaws. Adelaide’s inability to realize she is one of the Tethered could represent our own inability to recognize the evil within ourselves.

Yet the most intriguing aspect of “Us” is its critique of American social stratification. Even the film’s title, “Us,” doubles in meaning: it refers to “us” as individuals and the “U.S.” Early in the film, we learn that the Tethered exist only in the United States. The film begins by describing the expansive network of subterranean tunnels below the U.S., and when Adelaide asks Red, “Who are you?” Red responds, “We’re Americans.” Here, Peele explicitly spells out one of the underlying themes of the film: a rare misstep in an otherwise spectacular film.

But despite the less-than-subtle writing in this scene, the separation between the Tethered and those who live on the surface remains a brilliant metaphor for the disparity between upper- and lower-class Americans. Lowerclass individuals, represented by the Tethered, are physically trapped underground, rendering upward mobility impossible.

Every detail in “Us” is intentional. Two early

shots in the film, a shot of rabbits in cages and a 1980s Hands Across America commercial, foreshadow the film’s disturbing ending.

Additionally, Peele’s repeated references to the Bible verse Jeremiah 11:11 serve two purposes.

The number 11:11 appears to be a mirrored image of the number 11 — a subtle nod to the movie’s theme of duality. Furthermore, the verse itself, which references an inescapable evil, parallels the film’s theme of the evil that lies within us. The genius of “Us” lies within these ostensibly insignificant details.

And although “Us” diverts from classic horror films, Peele reveals himself to be a fan of the genre through the film’s visuals. The scene in the house of mirrors is reminiscent of the dark German Expressionist films of the early 20th century. The Tethered’s use of scissors as murder weapons evokes memories of slashers like “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Halloween.” The Tyler twins’ doppelgängers parallel the twins in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining.” Peele’s use of classic horror tropes does not redefine those conventions in any significant manner, but instead pays homage to the genre in a film where its commentary is anything but typical.

While “Us” is first and foremost a horror movie, it is a thought-provoking one, filled with complex questions and nods to its predecessors.

And while it’s primarily a horror film, you need not be a fan of the genre to enjoy it — Peele lets the film stand on its own. ◊

15

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