If you thought the HBO series Watchman it was a heady mix of historical events and fantasy-based drama, you’re in for a wild ride with the network of the next series Lovecraft Country.
Created by Misha Green (Metro), the eighth episode of the series is based on the 2016 dark fantasy horror novel of the same name by Matt Ruff. The novel explores the juxtaposition between H. P. Lovecraft’s horror fiction and Jim Crow era racism in the united states. Both the book and the show follow the science-fiction fan Atticus Turner (name of Atticus Freeman in the series) as he teams up with his uncle George and friend Letitia “Leti” Lewis in search of her missing father. According to HBO, what follows is a “struggle to survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the terrifying monsters that could be extracted out of a Lovecraft paperback book.”
The project was ordered straight to series in May of 2018 and is currently slated to premiere on HBO in the month of August. Not just a Green to write the series, but also serves as showrunner and executive producer along with Jordan PeeleJ. J. Abrams, Bill Carraro, Yann Demange (who directed the first episode), and Daniel Sackheim (who directed the second and third episodes). The cast of the series has more than a couple of familiar faces, including Jonathan Majors (When We Got Up) like Atticus, Jurnee Smollett-Bell (True Blood, Metroand Birds of Prey) as Letitia, Michael Kenneth Williams (The Wire and Boardwalk Empire) as Atticus’s father, Edward Freeman, and Courtney B. Vance (The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and American Crime Story) as Atticus ‘ uncle, George Freeman.
We can already tell from the short teaser that Lovecraft Country it’s going to be an exciting mix of Green and Peele style, which takes the social consciousness of terror and allegorical of terror, while the subversion of the usual tropes to reveal the true monsters are human. Yes, there are flashes of creepy, supernatural monsters in the video — and some of the badass of the struggle of the cast, but the novel and, supposedly, the show, the real terror is not of the mythical Cthulhu. It is from the very real terror that the people believe, as the laws of Jim Crow and the brutality of the police. So strap in people, we’re ready to get seriously rattled when Lovecraft Country premiering on HBO in August!
