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Jordan Peele’s Us is an Easter egg mine for horror fans. But what are the Us horror movie Easter eggs and references? Well, turns out—there are a lot. Us is only Peele’s second film, after 2017’s Oscar-nominated Get Out, but he’s already being hailed as the next Alfred Hitchcock. And while we don’t agree with that title (he’s not the next Hitchcock—he’s the first Jordan Peele), Peele has definitely proven to be a horror icon in-the-making. If you’ve seen Us, you may have noticed the many horror movie references throughout the movie, from a nod to The Shining to a hint toward Peele’s very own Get Out.
But before we dive into the horror movie references in Us, let’s talk about what the movie is about. The film, starring Lupita Nyong’o and Winston Duke, follows the Thomas family—Gabe and Adelaide and their two children Zora and Jason—as they vacation in Santa Cruz. One night, while the family is at their vacation home, four strangers appear in their driveway. The strangers look exactly like them, and thus begins the Thomas family’s mission to stay alive as their doppelgängers hunt to kill them. If the movie sounds scary, it’s because it is. And for horror fans, there are ton of Easter eggs to watch out for. (This post contains spoilers, so if you haven’t seen Us, click out now.)
Adelaide’s “Thriller” T-Shirt
Michael Jackson’s 1982 song “Thriller” was referenced several times in Us. The first is when young Adelaide’s dad wins a T-shirt for her at an amusement park game. The shirt is worn by Adelaide as wanders into the park’s mirror maze and is kidnapped and switched by fake Adelaide, who trades her “Hands Across America” shirt for her counterpart’s “Thriller” shirt. “Thriller” is also referenced at a beginning beach scene when a frisbee flies past Adelaide and Kitty and lands precisely in a circle on a beach towel. The frisbee is a classic case of misdirection. While viewers are paying attention to the frisbee in the circle, they miss that, on the frisbee, is the same design as the “Thriller” T-shirt.
Though not a horror movie reference, “Thriller” has long been associated with the genre and is a Halloween anthem. The “Thriller” reference is also a nod to the movie’s theme of duality, as Peele told Mashable. “Michael Jackson is probably the patron saint of duality,” he said. “The movie starts in the ’80s—the duality with which I experienced him [Jackson] in that time was both as the guy that presented this outward positivity, but also the “Thriller” video which scared me to death.”
Universal Pictures.
The Lost Boys Beach
Those around in the ’80s and ’90s will recognize the Santa Cruz boardwalk as the setting of 1987’s The Lost Boys, a vampire thriller starring Kiefer Sutherland. Though the film was set in the fictional town of Santa Carla, California, The Lost Boys was actually shot in Santa Cruz. The movie even references The Lost Boys in a flashback to 1986 when Adelaide’s mother says “They’re shooting a movie over there by the carousel.”
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The Friday the 13th Mask
1980’s Friday the 13th was referenced not-so-subtly in Adelaide and Gabe’s son, Jason, who is named after Friday the 13th‘s villain, Jason Voorhees. Like Voorhees’s signature hockey mask, Us’s Jason—and his counterpart, Pluto—also wear masks in the film. Jason’s is of Chewbacca from Star Wars, while Pluto’s is a simple white masks that covers his entire head.
Universal Pictures.
The Jaws T-Shirt
In the beginning scene at the beach, Jason wears a Jaws T-shirt, which was a conscious choice of Peele’s. In an interview, Peele confirmed that he reached out Steven Spielberg, the director of Jaws, to use the shirt in his movie. “I want to put Jason in a Jaws shirt..I reached out to Steven, begged him. I said, ‘Is there a Jaws shirt I can use for this film?’ And he said yes,” Peele said.
Universal Pictures.
The Shining Twins
Many have considered Kitty and Josh’s twins, Becca and Lindsey, a reference to the twins in The Shining, which was one of the 10 horror movies Peele asked his cast to watch in preparation for Us, according to Entertainment Weekly. Fans also believe that Peele referenced The Shining again when he dressed in a similar outfit to the film’s lead, Jack Torrance, at a press junket for Us.
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The Twilight Zone Inspiration
In 2019, Peele told Rolling Stone that the doppelgängers idea came specifically from a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone, where a woman sees her twin at a train station and is convinced that she’s come from another dimension to kill her. Peele is also behind the reboot of The Twilight Zone, which will premiere on CBS All Access in April.
Get Out References
There are many theories that Peele referenced his 2017 film Get Out in Us. One example are the films’ posters, which both include photos of Black leads with a tear running down their face. The parallel was spotted by an artist on Twitter, who painted a side-by-side. Another reference is when a character actually yells “Get out!”, as well as Zora and Umbrae’s running and track-and-field background, which could be a reference to the grandfather who took over the gardner’s body in Get Out. As fans may remember, the grandfather was a track-and-field star who said he lost to Jesse Owens in the Olympics.