Us: Jordan Peele May Be This Generation's Alfred Hitchcock

This article contains major spoilers for Us, in theaters now.

Director Jordan Peele has quickly moved past the comedic genius of Comedy Central's Key & Peele, establishing himself firmly as one of the horror genre's most refreshing and unique voices. 2017's Get Out got the train out the station, and now Us has Peele moving full steam ahead.

While many call Peele an upcoming filmmaker (and he is relatively new to helming his own movies), his distinct voice, powerful vision and the way he holds art up as a mirror to society's ills shape him as something more than an upstart. In his two horror movies so far, as bold a statement as it is, Peele is well on his way to becoming this generation's Alfred Hitchcock.

The heft of Peele's films is undeniable. The cast, stories being told, sociopolitical statements made, style of horror, haunting ambiance, dark twists and chilling scores are all similar to Hitchcock, whom he's never denied as a major influence on his career. Get Out was a deep dive into the human psyche, with levity cleverly crafted in at key intervals to create a light yet emotionally heavy and super tense atmosphere, as is the case with so many Hitchcock films.

The sense of mystery in Get Out felt similar to Hitchcock's 1943 mystery thriller Shadow of a Doubt, not to mention the way Peele patterned the confined space known as "the Sunken Place," where someone could lose their identity, boasted eerie tinges of the psychosomatic distress found in 1958's Vertigo.

Peele's sophomore effort, Us, also blends in several sub-genres -- horror, psychological thriller, suspense and mystery -- to produce something that can rival the best of Hitchcock's blood-curdling flicks, namely The Birds and Psycho (especially seen in the mother-son twist at the end of Us). In short, it's about emotional torture as much as it is physical, and this is where Peele really succeeds in deserving this title. Just look at the way Peele focuses on the gaze of actors, such as the scared Daniel Kaluuya and the desperate Lupita Nyong'o, in his movies and you can see he's perfecting the "Hitchcockian" style to remarkable effect.

NEXT PAGE: Jordan Peele May Be Generation Z's Master of Suspense

This technique uses camera movement to mimic a person's stare, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in the vision of the person on-screen, thus turning viewers into voyeurs. It stands out especially when Peele makes the big revelations in his movies, and in the way his heroes and villains find themselves running from death, or embracing it.

These are instances where the director has that Hitchcock-like effect, excelling at framing shots in order to maximize anxiety and fear. The method he uses to convey his stories in Get Out, and especially Us, offers us a fluid ride, filled with progression as we move from shot to shot. Like the film critic Robin Wood said when he described Hitchcock, it's "an organism, with the whole implied in every detail and every detail related to the whole."

And almost every one of Peele's scenes makes you feel part of this similar sense of dread and panic. The hair on the back of your neck doesn't rise because of sight alone, instead you feel every breath on your skin giving you goosebumps, and that, in and of itself, is why Hitchcock was called the "Master of Suspense." What's pretty noteworthy is that, as much as Peele apes and offers homage to this great icon of cinema, he's doing so with his own signature and oh-so contemporary style.

Clearly, from the raving critics, Peele is doing more than enough to mark himself as a heavyweight on this front. Make no mistake, we can appreciate what masters of horror have done in the past, such as Wes Craven, M. Night Shyamalan, John Carpenter and so on, but we're certainly seeing a new chapter and an overall evolution of the genre here, which is what Hitchcock ultimately accomplished.

We shouldn't be surprised, though, because Peele was already helming these succinctly dark stories on Comedy Central for years. Sure, most skits were jokes, but there are some inherently dark tales that always pegged him as an adherent to creators like Hitchcock, Rod Serling and such. In fact, that's why we're not surprised he's steering the ship for The Twilight Zone reboot. As it stands, his horror-driven mind has already given us a Hitchcock-esque auteur for Generation Z, and, as the impressive box office buy-in proves, Peele shows no signs of slowing down.

In theaters now, Us is written, directed and produced by Jordan Peele. The film stars Lupita Nyong'o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss, Anna Diop, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Kara Hayward, Tim Heidecker and Shahadi Wright Joseph.