Lovecraft Country is a sc-fi/horror series in a Jim Crow setting. Photo / Supplied
Lovecraft Country is a sc-fi/horror series in a Jim Crow setting. Photo / Supplied
Opinion
COMMENT:
When you get a show made by star showrunner Misha Green, modern horror pioneer Jordan Peele and sci-fi legend JJ Abrams, based on the writings of HP Lovecraft - one of the most renowned horror writers of all time - you'd have to be a fool not to tunein. That show is Lovecraft Country, and the first episode aired on Neon on Monday.
The series, based on the novel of the same name by Matt Ruff, follows a young black man - and raging sci-fi nerd - named Atticus (Jonathan Majors) as he, his Uncle George and his friend Letitia Lewis set out on a quest to find his missing father.
Trouble is; it's Jim Crow-era America, where black people can be shot on sight for just about anything, including being out and about past sunset. Add some Lovecraft-designed monsters to the mix and you've got more horror than you could've ever bargained for.
Watching Lovecraft Country, something felt strangely off. I couldn't put my finger on it until about the fourth episode which involves an Indiana Jones-esque adventure and that was when I realised it felt off because I'd simply never seen it done before.
We never get to see black people in these settings because the adventure/horror/fantasy realm seems almost wholly reserved for white people, presumably because usually only one token black person is ever cast and they almost immediately get killed off as a sort of cautionary tale for their white friends.
But this time, Atticus gets to be the hero he always dreamed of being, dealing with everything from people-eating monsters, religious cults, wizards, mind-control, ghosts and even a good ol fashioned possession. And by his side is the indomitable Letitia Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), who is the group's resident badass, singlehandedly saving her friends from trigger-happy cops, bloodthirsty monsters and racist neighbours, looking like a fashion model and speaking nothing but unapologetic truths while she does it.
As far as the horror aspect goes, Lovecraft Country is super-hokey and all kinds of cringey but that's the point: the monsters aren't the real monsters.
Lovecraft Country is a series unlike any you'll have seen before. Photo / Supplied
The idea of people's ancestors protecting them or wreaking vengeance is a recurring one, as is the idea of our heroes having to unearth and overcome racist histories in order to defeat the enemy and move forward.
It's clearly a statement of how there are monsters in the real world just as scary as - if not more than - those in fiction, and it's scarily as relevant now as it would have been in its 1950s setting; from a local sheriff trying to trap our heroes into being arrested to a witch knowing she's untouchable because "you know you can't just go around killing white women".
On top of all of that, the way the show is all pulled together is genius.
The soundtrack is packed with everything from snippets of Civil Rights speeches (eg. James Baldwin's debate speech in episode one) to spoken word poetry (Gil Scott-Heron's Whitey's on the Moon in episode two) to gospel hymns to modern hip-hop, and the writing and dialogue ditches all the usual theatrics of the genre, instead inserting real and relevant conversation.
Sometimes it's all about racial injustice, sometimes it's all about the mythical adventure, sometimes it's just about everyday life and sometimes it's pure, unadulterated nonsense - because the show's creators know from experience that the blackness cannot be distilled down to one universal experience and nor should a show about black people.
Lovecraft Country's sci-fi side is absolutely bonkers and delivers all the goods you'd usually expect from the genre, drawing on Lovecraft's creations and adding some more modern references for entertainment value you can't deny. And its human side is delivered with nuance and insight, and gives an unflinching take on racist America without once centring white people in that narrative.
Because of that marriage of two halves, it's the perfect show for 2020; a little bit of what you want with a little bit of what you need and a whole lot of goodness you've never had before.
Lovecraft Country streams on Neon on Mondays (episode one is out now), and airs on SoHo2 at 8.30pm on Wednesdays, starting tonight.
