Monsters of All Shapes, Sizes, and Species Lurk Everywhere in LOVECRAFT COUNTRY

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede This can be said with the utmost confidence: There is no other show on television like HBO’s LOVECRAFT COUNTRY. Debuting Sunday, Aug. 16 at 9 p.m. ET on Crave, LOVECRAFT COUNTRY is described as a 10-episode drama-horror show, but “drama-horror” doesn’t even begin to do it justice. In addition to the drama and the horror, it’s also a science fiction show, an adventure show, several old-time monster movies rolled into one, and it’s all set in the complex era of 1950s America, where terrifying racism was not restricted to the South. Just listen to showrunner, writer, director, and executive producer Misha Green’s list of influences for LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, and maybe a picture will start to emerge. First she paid tribute to past projects from her co-EPs, Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams. “It would have been incredibly hard to get this on air if Get Out (2017 OSCAR®-winning film from Peele) hadn’t come out – I think that kind of paved the way for people to really open up to the idea of seeing more Black people in dominant spaces,” she said. “I think LOST – you know, let’s go to J.J. – paved the way for this bigger TV-making, because I think the show is definitely an epic journey that wouldn’t have been possible if we weren’t making TV at the level that started with LOST, and that pilot.” Green didn’t stop there. “And then, every genre movie imaginable, and books, and all of that,” she continued. “We just went for everything in that space, from the adventure story, to the horror story, to sci-fi, THE SHINING, The Amityville Horror, all of it, everything in the genre space. I think that big genre fans will definitely see those Easter eggs and those homages throughout.” LOVECRAFT COUNTRY has an opening sequence that will take your breath away, before settling into a story about Atticus “Tic” Freeman, played by Jonathan Majors. Tic is a young ex-soldier in the ’50s who heads home to Chicago because his father has supposedly gone missing. His Uncle George, played by Courtney B. Vance, and his rediscovered childhood friend Leti, played by Jurnee Smollett, join Tic on a cross-country journey at a time when it wasn’t safe for three Black people to be driving through most parts of the U.S. – including the Northern states, which is where this show is set. But where does LOVECRAFT COUNTRY veer from that starting point? Well, let’s just say that by the end of the first episode, viewers will be breathless yet again. “I love monsters,” Green said bluntly. “I’ve been a horror fan since I was a kid. So it was just kind of going into that whole realm and creating these CGI monsters and really finding that was exciting and fun. And for me, the genre works best when metaphor is on top of something real, so it felt really prescient here, and what Matt Ruff (author of the 2016 novel of the same name) had done in his book, to parallel how the monsters from pulp was the metaphor on top of the racism that was going on in America, and it’s still going on.” There must have been some interesting budgetary discussions with regard to LOVECRAFT COUNTRY, but ultimately HBO was willing to foot the bill. “Willing? That’s an interesting phrase,” Green said with a chuckle. “But you know, I think that they were very excited. The thing about doing this thing at such a high budget is that they also get very scared very easily. So I think that they were excited, but scared.” Viewers are sure to feel the same way! billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv