User Reviews

Damnnn, the words "Cat In a Bag" will forever torment me for the rest of my life.

This is definitely not a pleasant watch: it is more or less like a 10 episodes long punch in the belly. The story tells of the unrelenting discrimination of a black family that moves into a white suburban neighborhood in the US, around the 50's. Things deteriorate, the neighbors gradually work themselves up to a murderous frenzy, while the besieged black family desperately tries to cope with all of this, until eventually they break and start fighting back.

To picture this gruesome story, the makers of this series use various narrative techniques, like flashbacks, metaphors, figments of the imagination, etcetera, up until bringing in supernatural, almost gothic aspects. Although this at many times results in fascinating cinematography, it's also a bit much, and there are moments that it caused (at least with me) serious confusion. Another slight reservation concerned the part of Betty, the most fervent of the discriminating neighbors. The series provided her with a substantial story-line of her own, stretching over several episodes. This was in itself fascinating, and Alison Pill acted great, but it seemed to have nothing whatsoever to do with the main story. So why?

Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas both did a stunning job, they really had to go to the limits and beyond in their parts. Shahadi Wright Joseph and Melody Hurt as their daughters were equally great, you almost shudder to think how these young kids must have undergone all the pretended but very convincingly pictured hate and violence during the filming.

Them (2021) is a series my fiancée and I wrapped up last weekend on Amazon Prime. The storyline takes place in the early 1950s as Los Angeles was really thriving and black Americans started moving to the predominantly white Compton. Unfortunately for one family the house they move into is both haunted and surrounded by racist white people, with problems of their own, that will stop at nothing to keep their area without diversity.

This series was created by Little Marvin (The Time is Now) and stars Deborah Ayorinde (Luke Cage), Ashley Thomas (The Night Of), Alison Pill (Goon), Shahadi White Joseph (Us), Ryan Kwanten (Dead Silence) and Pat Healy (The Innkeepers).

The storyline for this is absolutely amazing and was a perfect blend of The Shining and Poltergeist. The cinematography and how it was shot was beyond brilliant as was the woven in facts of American history. The acting was phenomenal. How they could weave in all the travesties of everything from losing a child, to the challenges of PTSD, to being sexually abused by your parents, to facing racism...I'm not sure too many shows or movies have ever covered these topics and the intensity that goes with it in your day to day life so well.

This series is remarkable and I couldn't score it anything but a 10/10. This is probably the best addition to the horror genre in 2021 and I think it will be hard for anything else to come close.

I gave this a few days to digest and take it what I watched. Overall it was not bad BUT also not good. I just got too invested and had to finish.

Personally I feel lots of things shown, the show could've done without. As a black person i understand the creators wanted it to be raw and hit home on what happened back in the day to colored people. But I feel it was executed as a very pretentious-in your face-college film student type vibe.

Obviously the r**e and child murder scene was very intense to watch (had to look away a few times) just personally wasn't it for me. I'm willingly to bet that for season two they'll be just a screwed up and this time go the route of some Nazi/consecration camp type thing since that's pretty much the last and just a screwed up thing.

Okay, I sacrificed my sleep to binge watch this, because the series the will keep you hooked. But I think the show is intentionally made disturbing. Not for the supernatural horror, but for racism. However, combining both made the series even more disturbing. The director followed screenplay of Hitchcock very closely, even the normal scene will starts to creep you out. Nonetheless, i feel the show has some borrowed features from both duology of Haunted of the Hill House and Bly Manor. The ghosts play with their mind- reference from Hill House. Ep 9 become black and white - reference from Bly Manor. Overall, combining with social issue of racism gave the series a new dimension. I give 7 for lack of originality in the storyline and I give 7 for beautifully connecting to gruesome issues at once. Good acting, good direction.