Fifties California Suburbia Gets Spooky in ‘Them’ Teaser

Little Marvin and Lena Waithe revealed a teaser for their upcoming anthology series Them, and, yes — it’s insanely creepy.

Set in the Fifties during the Great Migration, the trailer features a black family moving from North Carolina to an all-white neighborhood in Los Angeles. As Dusty Springfield’s “Windmills of Your Mind” plays, the idyllic suburbia becomes menacing and frightening. Neighbors — including Alison Pill — stare at them through their windows, while closets reveal a threatening presence.

Them arrives on April 9th via Amazon Prime Video. In addition to Pill, it stars Deborah Ayorinde, Ashley Thomas, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Melody Hurd, and Ryan Kwanten. Little Marvin created the series, also executive-producing with Waithe.

In an interview with TV Line, Little Marvin said he started writing the show a few summers ago when he’d log onto social media and frequently see videos of black people being terrorized, harassed, and surveilled — usually by police.

“It got me thinking a lot about my own experiences,” he said. “Personally of that gaze, but also a history of that gaze and the terror of navigating this country in black skin. It’s no secret that public spaces have been weaponized against black people since the dawn of this country. But what I hadn’t seen told in that story was the tension between the public and the private. And the most private of spaces is the home. The world outside might be crazy but, in here, we have each other. What happens when that safe space turns ugly too?”