MINISERIES PREMIERE: This 10-part miniseries, based on the novel by Matt Ruff and expanded substantially and cleverly by writer and showrunner Misha Green, is something to add to your must-see viewing list. Each episode may end up reminding you of a different movie or genre – I’ve only seen five of the 10 installments, and already have seen sly nods to everything from
Poltergeist to
Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yet
Lovecraft Country also has its own sensibility, and a refreshing focus, in the horror genre, on making its protagonists either African-American, or female, or both. Jonathan Majors stars as the Korean War vet suspected of being an unknown black-sheep relative (and a Black one, period) of a mysterious, magical white tycoon – and Jurnee Smollett co-stars as a childhood friend accompanying the veteran on his voyages of discovery. The original stories of writer H.P. Lovecraft feed some of the more fantastic elements of both the book and TV versions of
Lovecraft Country – but both of them also take great pains to subvert, reverse, and even lay bare the racist elements of Lovecraft’s stories, poems and beliefs. Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams are two of the executive producers of this HBO miniseries, which should lend it some instant credibility, which Green and company pay back with interest. Co-stars include Courtney B. Vance, Michael Kenneth Williams, and Abbey Lee. I particularly love the anachronistic use of music: Next week’s episode begins with the theme song from TV’s
The Jeffersons and ends with the boldly dramatic usage of Gil Scott-Heron’s justifiably angry tone poem, “Whitey’s On the Moon.” And tonight’s episode? It includes a “driving while Black” incident that, even though
Lovecraft Country is set in the mid-’50s, couldn’t be any more applicable to today – and ends with a thrilling climax that’s monstrous. Literally. As in, full of monsters. For my full review on NPR’s
Fresh Air with Terry Gross, visit the Fresh Air website. And for a
full review here at TVWW, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.