Lovecraft Country: Season 1 – HBO Review (4/5)

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is a new horror series on HBO. Misha Green, Jordan Peele, and J.J. Abrams are behind this series based on a book. You’ll get intense horror and a lot of historical facts through great storytelling. Read our Lovecraft Country review here!

LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is a new series on HBO. It features a lot of really good horror (definitely not for the faint of heart) and lots of important history as well. The series is based on a book that intertwines the racism of 1950’s America with horror stories by author H.P. Lovecraft.

I love the fact that the series plays out during these years since it means lots of facts can be presented. And yes, this does mean that Lovecraft Country is the kind of story that has a very broad appeal and reach. From horror to fairytale-like stories alongside historical facts concerning the civil rights movement in the USA. Just as it was the case with the book by Matt Ruff which this series is adapted from.

Read our full Lovecraft Country review below. We’ve watched the first five episodes of season 1, which has a total of 10 episodes.

A very relevant look at history – and lots of horror!

Lovecraft Country was created by Misha Green and Jordan Peele. Misha Green started her writing career on the Sons of Anarchy series and has gone on to work on series such as Heroes and Underground. In terms of the storyline concerning civil rights for African-Americans, I can’t think of better writers for this adaption.

Misha Green and Jordan Peele are also producers on this series along with J.J. Abrams, so we’ve got some heavy-hitters behind this HBO production. Jordan Peele also gave us Get Out and Us, while also being behind the reboot of The Twilight Zone series. In other words, he is giving us genre productions for both the big screen and the small screen.

You might like: Our review of the very relevant Get Out here >

J.J. Abrams actually started his career in series. He was a co-creator on such iconic shows as Alias and Lost before going into directing as well. He has since directed movies like Star Trek (2009), Super 8 (2011), and most recently Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019).

The perfect cast

When having the gruesome history of civil rights in the USA meet the crazy tales of Lovecraft, you need great actors to make it all come together. Fortunately, the cast of Lovecraft Country is simply perfect. They can carry the serious and important historically based scenes as well as the ones featuring actual supernatural monsters.

Which is scary? Well, not the creatures from H.P. Lovecraft. After all, that was fiction, the rest are facts!

I especially have to mention Jurnee Smollett for her amazing performance in Lovecraft Country. To me, Jurnee Smollett is the beating heart of Lovecraft Country and does tie many stories (and characters) together.

In this series, she is insanely fierce, dangerously vulnerable, and full of heart in a very impressive way. Of course, we recently saw similar strengths from her in Birds of Prey which definitely highlighted how awesome she is, as well. Jurnee Smollett was also in True Blood and played the leading role in a recent episode of The Twilight Zone reboot by Jordan Peele.

Apart from her, Jonathan Majors carries much of the plot in Lovecraft Country as the official lead character. You might recognize Jonathan Majors from the When We Rise (2017) series, but this series should be his big break!

As some very important supporting characters, we get Courtney B. Vance (Project Power) and Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire). The two actors play brothers in this series and are uncle and dad to the lead character. Also, Abbey Lee plays a key role and you should recognize her from Mad Max: Fury Road or Elizabeth Harvest.

Watch Lovecraft Country on HBO

Even though Lovecraft Country season 1 has just 10 episodes, you can’t watch them all at once. This is an HBO series which means you’ll get one episode per week. Every Sunday a new episode will be aired. Of course, you can wait until all episodes are released but that means spoilers are very possible. I would not wait!

Just watch this series as soon as you can. Episode 1 of Lovecraft Country is a great way to start this series, in which episode 2 might be the weakest of the five, we have watched. However, episode 4 is almost like watching Indiana Jones, so we do get around a lot. In the best of ways!

Lovecraft Country essentially gives you everything from extremely bloody horror to Indiana Jones-like adventure. No matter the style of each episode, it is always told through the very violent and brutal climate of the fight for civil rights for black Americans in the USA in the 1950s.

And yes, this is why Jordan Peele (who also uses this exact combination in his movies) is perfect as a producer and co-creator of the series.

Bottom line: Just watch this series and don’t be fooled by any slow-burn moments or expect a drama series. Lovecraft Country has both body horror, monsters, and everything in between… including the scariest animal of all: Humans!

Season 1 of Lovecraft Country premieres on HBO on Sunday, August 16, 2020.

Details

Creators: Misha Green, Jordan Peele
Stars: Jonathan Majors, Jurnee Smollett, Courtney B. Vance, Michael K. Williams, Abbey Lee, Wunmi Mosaku