Once upon a time, Compton, California was a neighborhood in Los Angeles that was almost exclusively white. It wasn’t until after World War II that the area began to grow in terms of its racial demographics, eventually becoming a majority Black neighborhood in L.A. With racially restrictive covenants, Compton restricted the sale of homes in its suburban neighborhoods to Black families, and those who did move into the area in the 1950s were often met with unfriendly, racist neighbors. Such is the story that is told in the forthcoming Amazon Prime series, THEM.
Created and produced by Little Marvin and Lena Waithe, THEM follows a middle-class family who become the first Black people to move into a white neighborhood in Compton, where their suburban dream quickly devolves into a nightmare. Deborah Ayorinde and Ashley Thomas play parents to Shahadi Wright Joseph (known for her role as the daughter in Jordan Peele’s Us) and Melody Hurd, their two young daughters.
However, their neighbors are less than accepting of the new family. A group of angry housewives (led by Alison Pill) terrorize the Emory family in a bid to push them out of the neighborhood, as do their teachers and colleagues at work. Of course, because this is a horror anthology series, there is also an unexplained, possibly supernatural, terror haunting the Emory family in their home and yard—and seemingly everywhere else, too.
The series will be available to stream on Amazon Prime on April 9.
Source: W Magazine
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