Jordan Peele’s follow-up to the Oscar winning Get Out has doubles everywhere. Doppelgangers are ganging up on an ordinary American family and in this hall of mirrors nothing is quite as it seems. Peele knows it’s a story as old as time, even on screen. With Us, his originality is not in the theme but in the telling. It could’ve been pure polemic. In truth it’s a superior, serpentine movie where every sound, frame and word matters.

As a young child, Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) strays away from her family at a funfair and enters a mirror-room. Is the figure behind her a reflection or…? Many years later, now a wife and mother, Adelaide is heading for a holiday near the scene of the incident. Her goofy hubby (Winston Duke) doesn’t do subtle and isn’t getting it. Creeped out, is Adelaide’s horror happening again? Yep. As one of the kids says: “There’s a family on our drive…”

And so there is. Exactly like them, person for person. Each dressed in a red boiler suit and carrying the most snippety pair of scissors you’ve seen. Spooky silence gives way to gate-creakingly guttural cries as the doubles skitter about like the souped up zombies of 28 Days Later. But Peele is no imitator and he treads the knife-edge between horror, mystery and comedy unlike anyone else in cinema today.

Sure there’s horror and the bodies pile up. But the violence is mostly out of shot and never gory. It’s funny too, often at its scariest point. Not sending-up the genre but deftly, at one with Peele’s intelligent approach. So a family’s high-tech gadgetry takes their calls for help a touch too literally – as their shallow lifestyle comes back to bite them.

Peele deals in ordinary families. Adelaide’s brood is believably real; her hubby is doting and unseeing, embarrasses his kids like ‘fun’ dads do, and is initially emasculated by the situation. But the writer-director treats his audience with respect, lacing his film with quietly played visual clues. A man stands alone on a beach arms akimbo, blood dripping from his fingers like a tired and spooky scarecrow. It’s only an hour later that we realise what this means.

A down-and-out’s cardboard sign of ‘Jeremiah 11:11’, seen by the young Adelaide, reverberates through the movie. ‘I will bring evil on them…they shall not escape…’. As it’s a Bible verse in a scary movie, you can guess it’s not a happy one. But it did become a top Google search. Smartly, though, 11:11 crops up on digital clocks, number plates, clueing us to the double-trouble that undertows the movie.

Visually, Us drips with class. Cinematographer Mike Gioulakis (It Follows) creates sinewy movement, a palette of light and dark, of heightened colours. And Michael Abel’s score is wonderfully effective, all thrumming strings and off-kilter rhythms; ill-served when Peele can’t resist the ‘boo-behind-you’ scares. But beautifully ripe when the horror unfolds, drawing you into the nightmare.

Credit to Lapita Nyong’o (Black Panther, 12 Years a Slave) who is outstanding as the two versions of herself. The fantastic vocalisation of the shadow-self is unnerving; her facial tics and body-movements believable. Respect too to Elizabeth Moss (The Handmaid’s Tale) who conveys a brittle superficiality as the family’s friend and gets to demonstrate a darkly manic side.

For sure, it’s a female empowerment movie and a political skit on Trump’s America – yes, the ‘Us’ is the US of A. But Peele weaves these in so well, they don’t stick out. Air-punchingly good is Adelaide’s daughter (Shahadi Wright Joseph) who turns the ‘can I drive?’ plea into a pedal-to-the-metal ride; it’s a bat-wielding coming-of-age.

Witty one liners sit alongside politico putdowns. “Who are you?” Adelaide asks the invaders. “We’re Americans”. Mexico, walls, it’s all there. But seamlessly done. It’s only Peele’s cleverness that gets you in the end, as the confused denouement fails to hit the right beats. Having made you think, you can’t help yourself: just how did they make those red boiler suits if they lived down there….?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers did it for McCarthyite America. Peele does it for now; for us. I’m glad he did.

Reviewing a film like Us is a tricky endeavour. It is best to approach the film with as little information as possible and I must tip my hat to the marketing department who have managed to create an evocative campaign around it without ruining any of the surprises the film has in store. If you really want to go in with as little information as possible all you need to know is that Us is Jordon Peele's follow-up to Get Out and that it is another deeply disturbing vision of modern America.

Still with me? The basic plot of Us is an idyllic family's holiday bliss is interrupted by the arrival of figures in the night who turn out to be their doppelgängers. This is not the matriarch's first encounter with these figures and her relationship with them is key as the narrative moves towards a truly bonkers finale.

First and foremost Us is a horror. It's built on a singular premise, grounded in a modern fear and playing out like a warped, demented fairy tale. At times it's extraordinarily violent and there are several truly haunting shots here. If Get Out was a calling card, this is Peele's letter of intent, an establishment that he is not a one-trick pony. Truly he is one of the most exciting genre directors to emerge since John Carpenter and Wes Craven. Added to this is a gorgeous look courtesy of It Follows' Mike Gioulakis, as well as another spine-tingling, tension-inducing score from Michael Abels.

The acting here is exemplary. Shahadi Wright Joseph and Evan Alex are terrific as the younger members of the family unit, whilst there are fun supporting turns from Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker. Us starts slow, taking its time to get to know its characters before it unleashes itself. Yet surprisingly it is at its funniest (and at times it's very funny) when it changes tones and breaks into full horror. Peele effectively layers in the humour to keep his audience on side and his characters always likeable. Nowhere is this more apparent in Winston Duke's father-figure who, as he did with Black Panther, comes close to stealing every scene he is in. But the film truly belongs to Lupita Nyong'o, who gives a pair of performances that dominate proceedings, coiling around the film and choking out every ounce of tension. If she weren't already an Oscar-winner and star of two mega franchises (Star Wars and Marvel) I'd say this would propel her to A-list status.

Us makes a firm case for the cinematic power of horror, offering a sweeping experience that sprawls out from a deliciously nasty idea. By the time it reaches its final act, the film threatens to collapse in on itself under the weight of the ideas Peele is playing with, and for some these moments will be too much. But for those game enough to go with it, Us is a fabulous horror fairy tale. It lacks much of the cleanness of Get Out, a furiously focused film, but it emerges as an entirely different beast. And again Peele has matched himself with a lead performance that is truly sensational.