The concept behind “Beneath Us” is deeply political in a way that needs little embellishment.
Four day laborers are tortured by a rich white couple who can’t see an ounce of their humanity. That’s all you need to check off the Jordan Peele-approved messaging, and yet “Beneath Us” doesn’t stop there.
It’s just warming up.
The results repelled film critics who might otherwise cheer on the open-borders propaganda. The deeper problem? “Beneath Us” revisits the worst aspects of torture porn without the coherency Eli Roth brought to the sub-genre.
Elizabeth (Lynn Collins, “X Men Origins: “Wolverine”) hires four Mexican laborers to work on her expansive home, assuming they’re put up with her demands. “Quitting time,” for instance, isn’t in her vernacular.
She...