Fandom and fatalities don’t combine—however in Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ new collection, they arrive crashing to a bloody, superb head.
Amazon Studios
Who’s your favourite artist? Reply rigorously. That query is round each demented and wicked nook of Donald Glover and Janine Nabers’ new Amazon Prime collection Swarm, an impressed, dirty, and downright unimaginable horror collection that tackles the cruel and violent realities of obsession and fandom headfirst. On this story, the favourite artist isn’t simply that, they turn out to be one thing of a God, their awe-inspiring aura like kryptonite for these below their spell—and for the anti-hero of this story, that spell turns into lethal.
The seven-episode collection follows Dominique Fishback’s Dre, a socially awkward superfan of a worldwide sensation named Ni’jah, a fictional pop star akin to Beyoncé. Ni’jah’s followers are known as “The Swarm”—See? The parallels are there, and they’re apparent—and they’re infamous for his or her dedication to their idol. Earlier than lengthy, Dre’s dedication to Ni’jah and The Swarm begins spiraling uncontrolled, all as a result of a defining incident with a cherished one shakes her actuality to its very core.
It needs to be mentioned proper up entrance: That is Fishback’s present, and he or she will blow you away. The actress actually burst onto the scene with an unmissable flip as Fred Hampton’s fiancée Deborah Johnson in Judas and the Black Messiah two years in the past, however Swarm is undoubtedly her true breakout function. She is pitch good as an emotionally warped younger lady determined for love and acceptance from these closest to her. When these needs bleed into one thing damaged and sinister, Fishback dives in headfirst. It’s a pleasure to look at Dre break down and attempt to discover stability in her heinous acts, and much more thrilling to expertise the lengths she’s going to go to safe it. Clearly, the collection offers with this because it pertains to stan tradition, and Fishback’s efficiency actually hammers residence the sophisticated psyche of the obsessive fan in a manner that doesn’t shrink back from parasocial tendencies—and the way they’ll rear their ugly head in damaging methods.
Fishback isn’t the one nice actor within the collection, although. In actual fact, almost each single one who speaks on this present knocks it out of the park. Chloe Bailey shines as Marissa, Dre’s sister whom she lives with and mooches off of in favor of spending cash she doesn’t have on her idol. Their particular and distinctive bond is so palpable that the way in which Dre goes on to work together with Bailey’s character’s reminiscence turns into devastating by itself every time it’s highlighted on display screen. By this level, you could have heard that one Miss Billie Eilish makes a cameo look within the collection, marking her display screen debut. I’m right here to quell any worries as a result of not solely is she completely forged, however she is an absolute pure on display screen. Embodying a feminist cult chief in episode 4, she is reserved, the wheels handing over her mind at each second—however not with out softness and calculated kindness. Her most heightened scene with Fishback is a tour de power second for each of them, and they’re every giving a lot to at least one one other as actors that the depth of the scene spills over into haunting territory. Briefly, it’s a second—one in all many on this collection—that you should have a tough time forgetting.
Gushing about Fishback’s brilliance apart—belief me, for this venture, I might do that every one day—the collection is wealthy with identification, and that’s one other main a part of its plain charisma and energy. It has a extremely gritty but smooth visible type, using daring colours and a ton of flashing imagery that helps to disorient in a few of the present’s headier moments, the occasions when Dre dissociates in an effort to get a grip on her actuality. Glover and Nabers take fearless swings at type and substance, melding the 2 right into a delightfully transgressive story that seeks to drag you in with its visuals as a lot as its story. Dre’s world seems like ours however only a bit off, particularly in relation to those that are well-known in her world. (A small character cameo of a sure well-liked discuss present host in episode 5 will cement that for audiences.) A lot of that eerie really feel is due to the present’s distinctive and trendy manufacturing design that seems like a weird dupe of the world we all know.
To not be forgotten, not by a longshot, is the present’s intoxicating and addicting soundtrack, which options the goddess Ni’jah herself. Being really in a position to hear the music Dre is so obsessive about is such a good way to set the scene of her unbridled and harmful ardour—particularly with how catchy every monitor is. Followers can hearken to the songs in full by way of the artist’s accompanying EP, that includes all of Ni’jah’s tracks from the collection, which is a welcomed addition to the Swarm canon contemplating all of the earworms all through every episode. The music is among the ultimate items of the puzzle that serve to completely immerse the viewer in Dre’s world. The present’s good use of music and its deliberate use of sound—discover that buzzing rising louder and extra ominous each time Dre begins hatching a plan?—assist push the viewers into its tangled internet, the one inside Dre’s messed-up head.
Swarm is a great indictment of stan tradition as a lot as it’s a sharp serial killer story, and personally, the present has ensnared me in a manner that few homicide tales do. Mixing violence and fandom seems like a pure trajectory for storytelling in that realm, just because it’s one thing we don’t take very significantly, not less than not till it’s too late in actual life. Idolatry and parasocial bonds deserve a wider lens, one that enables artists to peel again the layers of those sophisticated ideologies. Glover and Nabers’ collection is daring sufficient to faucet in, and there’s no denying that regardless of the darkness, there are gems in all places inside this story.
Swarm is at the moment obtainable on Amazon Prime Video. Watch the collection trailer right here.
Associated Subjects: Dominique Fishback, Donald Glover, SXSW
Lex Briscuso is an leisure and tradition author, critic, and radio host residing in Brooklyn. Along with writing information and criticism for /Movie, she is the top of social media at Dread Central, Dread Presents, and Epic Photos Group, and contributes criticism at Paste Journal. Yow will discover her bylines at The Guardian, Fangoria, Vulture, Roger Ebert, EUPHORIA., Dread Central, and Shudder’s The Chew, and her horror and style radio present, YOUR NICHE IS DEAD, is reside Mondays at 5pm ET on unbiased web station KPISSFM.
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