'Them': The Trauma, The Trauma

'Them': The Trauma, The Trauma toggle caption Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video/Courtesy of Amazon Prime Video Lately, everyone's talking about trauma. Sponsor Message Even if you hadn't already seen the much-discussed trailer, it would be easy enough to guess what said terror might entail based on that short description alone: Good ol', mid-20th century American racism. When Lucky responds to one of Betty's racist tirades by smacking her clear across the face, James Brown's electrifying "The Payback" kicks in for a hot second; yet the punctuation feels less like a triumphant nod to Foxy Brown than it does a crass, intentional play for Black Twitter meme status. Each of the Emorys are haunted by a demon corresponding to their individual life experiences, and through these spirits, one can see the makings of a potentially more interesting character study than what we're given — a story using supernatural elements to tap into trauma within Black families with the richness and sharpness of a movie like Kasi Lemmons' Eve's Bayou or, more recently, His House, the captivating haunted house tale about a South Sudanese refugee couple living in the U.K. Sponsor Message Instead it borrows from the playbook of last year's unwieldly and exploitative Antebellum, and shows like Westworld and Lovecraft Country, which favor slick convolution over coherent narrative choices.