JORDAN Peele’s debut - Get Out - became a surprise pop culture sensation on its release two years ago. The film, which saw Daniel Kaluuya leap to the A-list as a young black American ensnared into a racially charged community, was a box office hit and won Peele his first Oscar. How does one follow so huge a feature? Whereas Get Out landed with little by way of expectation, Us - which arrives in cinemas this week - has a lot to prove. Can Peele turn out another masterpiece? Or, will this be his difficult second album? Well, it’s certainly not the latter.

Another horror, this time less comedic in tone, Us is a surprising, disturbed and brilliantly energetic follow up from Peele. Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Elisabeth Moss and Tim Heidecker star in the film as four in a group who come face to face with their own evil doppelgängers during a seaside getaway. Described as ‘spill your soda’ scary, Us benefits too from Peale’s continued will to explore the darkness lurking beneath the proud democratic tradition of American society.

Peale has brought Michael Abels across from Get Out to score the film, which also shares its producers in Jason Blum and Sean McKittrick. The less said in previews about Us, the more fun readers will have in watching it - if fun is the right word - so let’s move on.

Also this week, Ralph Fiennes directs his first film since 2013’s The Invisible Woman, working from a script by David Hare. The White Crow tells the story of Soviet ballet star Rudolf Nureyev - played by actual Oleg Ivenko dancer - often named the greatest male performer of his generation.

The film tells both of Nureyev’s prestigious talent, spurred on by his mother, and of his remarkable defection from the Soviet Union to the West in the height of the Cold War. In Russian culture, a white crow is essentially equitable to the proverbial black sheep. Hare took inspiration from the book ‘Rudolf Nureyev: The Life’ by Julie Kavanagh in producing his screenplay, which is predominantly spoken in Russian.

If the film is not quite the full arabesque, it’s extraordinary soundscape does much to heighten the impressive musicality. Ballet fans should enjoy the film’s choreography and Fiennes must be commended for casting a dancer in the lead, rather than editing an actor.