Is Swarm based on a true story? No — it’s based on these movies

Certain influences can have an impact on SwarmThese two are very obvious in ‘Prime Video: Janine Nabers and Donald Glover. They both wrote the for AtlantaGlover created the. And of course there’s the Beyoncé of it all, with Swarm following Dre (played by Dominique Fishback), whose life and obsession with a Beyoncé-like pop star (Ni’Jah, in the world of the show) takes a dark turn.

But the list doesn’t stop there. “We watched a lotMany movies. There were many film lovers in the writers’ room. Each of us has a subscription to Criterion Collection. Also, we just watched. a lot,” Nabers tells Polygon, saying she and Glover watched everything from documentaries to features to “so, so, so, so” much more, “just to think outside the box of the way we see TV right now.”

Considering the level of detail Nabers and her crew put into even a visual album we’d only see for a few seconds on screen, it’s worth unpacking the wealth or influences (cited or not) that you can see on screen in Swarm.

The Piano Instructor

Photo by Quantrell D.Colbert/Prime Video

Glover and Nabers say they are huge fans of Michael Haneke. Caché as one of her favorite films (and, indeed, it’s pretty clear to see the similarities between that movie’s poster and Swarm’s). But SwarmNabers claimed that she had pulled in more money from The Piano Instructor, “one of the wildest journeys I’ve ever gone on in terms of just as a viewer.”

“You’re watching a woman who you’re just completely mesmerized by, but also terrified by. It’s a feeling I have, too. I’m leaning into something, but I just don’t know what I’m gonna get, and just having that feeling kind of be reshaped in every single episode that we watch with this character, was definitely something that was very important to us when telling this story.”

The Piano Instructor It is available on HBO Max, and Criterion Channel. Caché It is also available digitally for rental and purchase via Amazon, Apple TV or Google Play.

The Skin

Image: A24

A simple comparison to the sometimes eerie and grounded tone of Swarm, 2013 sci-fi The Skin Jonathan Glazer, a comedian from Canada could be incorporated into many of the episodes. If you’ve only made it to episode 2, it’s easy to see how Swarm lets Dre use her sexuality in a way not unlike Scarlett Johansson’s Laura (though she’s less successful as a lure than they are, at least when she’s working in a strip club). Nabers claims that the relationship between Dre and her is more than this.

“In a way, she’s like, putting on different skins to see what fits. Dre is a master at this. We kind of see her in so many different shades of a woman in the show,” Nabers says. “I think in terms of The Skin — this woman is It is actually an alien in The Skin, and just, like, looking at how we really want to project humanity onto her even though she isn’t human, and that need to always try to do that with every scene that she’s in.

“And there’s something about the alienness of Dre and us kind of doing the same thing with her in a lot of ways and her reaction to things that you think would be one way being drastically different.”

The Skin It is streaming on HBO Max or free with a Kanopy library card.

Don’t Fuck With Cats

“That documentary, like, just completely blew our minds,” Nabers says. “That to me is just the idea of how social media kind of played a huge point in the storytelling, and the puzzle of that documentary, and how the pieces kind of fell together. All of that was really real food for thought for us.”

Don’t Fuck With Cats Netflix has it available for streaming.

Bret Easton Ellis’s works

Bret Easton Ellis is another influential influence on Nabers. Swarm. She refers to American Psycho as one of her favorite movies, but notes that his books are also formative — particularly It is less than zero. “It feels a little bit like you’re […] just running with this woman and you just don’t know what’s gonna happen next. And I think that was really, really important to us with a story.”

American Psycho You can stream it for free, with advertisements on Pluto TV.

Atlanta

Photo: Guy D’Alema/FX

Unsurprisingly, the last show that Glover and Nabers worked on together is a big influence on the show (Nabers says that “most of the writers” came from AtlantaAlso, Obviously some of that comes formalistically — the moody look and tone of Swarm, in particular — especially when it comes to nailing the tone of the Amazon show as it swings wildly from tragedy to comedy.

“That’s just the way that we see story. It’s like math at this point,” Nabers says. “It can be terrifying and it can be all of those things. But at the end of the day we can watch something horrifying in a room, and we’ll find something to laugh about. There’s always something to laugh about.”

But it’s also where the room was able to capture the emotional crux driving the show: a relationship between two people who are each other’s family.

“Even though AtlantaIt was a great story. [Earn and Alfred], at the end of the day, the kernel of that story was still that,” Nabers tells Polygon. “And I think that’s very similar to what the story of SwarmIt is, at the end the heart of the story is the relationship between the sisters. Dre’s journey will lead us to some really strange and interesting places. This has always been part of what it was like to work on a show such as “The Apprentice.” Atlanta, and now working on this.”

Atlanta Hulu allows you to stream it.

Beyoncé: Lemonade

This is kind of cheat. Though Nabers doesn’t cite Lemonade specifically, it’s undeniable that Beyoncé’s visual album opus had an influence on the show — our world stopped to watch it drop just like Dre drops everything to watch Festival In the show.

What Nabers does say is they worked really hard for every glimpse we see of Ni’Jah to feel real and grounded in reality. “All of that stuff has to feel really specific and real. So we put as much effort into that as we did writing the scripts,” Nabers says, citing the team efforts of everyone from production designers to directors to the writers. “We have people who have directed music videos that are on our staff. […] We have, obviously, Donald, who’s a musician himself and is very, very into every single thing that comes out, [and]He is very meticulous with every detail on his brand, Childish Gambino.

“[We just wanted] to really, really nail that idea of who this woman is, and make it feel as lived-in and real as possible.”

Of course, if you want to catch every single one of the Beyoncé Easter eggs — the concert dates, the “Running Scared” tour with Ni’Jah’s husband Caché, the posters on Dre’s wall — you’ll have to do a deeper dive than just Lemonade. This is a sure bet that the Beyhive offers educational pamphlets.

Lemonade Tidal has it available for you to see.