Lovecraft Country?

Hi!

I really like horror. I really like reading. My friends do not, so I am putting this here due to lack of anywhere else I can think of to do it.

I've only watched the first episode so far, but I really like when something is adapted to a different medium, and the new medium uses that for its references? As in the book was more about old pulp written fiction, the tv show is using old tv shows and movies, or at least things that may be more in the public consciousness with the right "vibes", as opposed to some random 1920's magazine pulp.

Whomever along the production line decided to make John Carter the first named reference is a genius because it is both a movie that would be in general public knowledge with the right "vibes" (old-timey adaptation, kinda looked down on as bad schlock) but it is also actually old pulp. This is hilarious to me.

The first 20 minutes made me feel like the people making the show were saying don't worry we get what the book was about and we're gonna do that too, but our own way.

Anyone watching this? Read the book? It is neat so far.

I'm a big Lovecraft fan (just read every story he wrote, even all the not good ones) and couldn't stand to watch this after two episodes. The pacing, the writing, the plot... HBO has lost the ball so hard lately as a Network between late GoT, Watchmen, Westworld, and now this. It doesn't feel Lovecraft at all in the pacing, presentation, and certain doom hanging over. People love to rip the guy off and not do his work justice for its strengths. Most of the stuff they lean into is not even the really good part of his writing.

Watch the great recent Colour out of Space movie or the also excellent Whisperer in Darkness, which actually does nail a period appropriate presentation for a Lovecraft movie and is in black and white.

@toughshed: This is based on a book by the same name, Lovecraft Country, not Lovecraft's works.

I'm also a huge Lovecraft fan but this is obviously not a Lovecraft adaptation, I think you're missing the point. It's a completely separate book that uses the backdrop of cosmic horror intertwined with pulp horror to tell a completely different story about racial inequality. It's only loosely related to any actual Lovecraft stuff, ironically, because his works were so inspired by his deep-seated fear of the unknown and of others.

This show is so awesome! (I haven't read the book, and I have read a ton of Lovecraft)

It's so refreshing to see a story with these themes and monsters, and have it told from the experience of black characters in America during that specific time in history. Very clearly a narrative that operates inside a world that explicitly incorporates Lovecraftian themes, but isn't a direct adaptation of his work. I also love that they're not afraid to just "go there," and get crazy with what's happening on screen without being too self-conscious about it. The special effects are preeeeettty hokey, but it's kind of charming! There's really nothing like it, though, and I'm really excited to see where they go from here. It's starting to look a little like it will be a collection of smaller stories within the larger context of the setting that they've established.

I thought the terror of Jim Crow America was represented disturbingly well and kept me on edge throughout the entire first episode. It is both terrifying to see people had to live in fear this way at one point in time and dumbfounding that to a certain degree, so many years later, they still do. So the historical terror was well represented, proving once more that you don't really need monsters when mankind is bad enough all on it's own. That said, for a horror show about the supernatural and occult (as I assumed this would be) the monsters were probably the weakest and smallest piece of the puzzle. I haven't seen the second episode yet but if this is the tone for the rest of the series then quite frankly I don't know if I have the stomach for it.

I thought the first episode was fantastic and tense the whole way through. Episode 2 was interesting but it felt like too much happened too quickly and too much was introduced and then resolved and it should have been episodes 2 and 3.

Overall I think it is a fantastic idea to take Lovecraft's ideas and recontextualize and repackage them as a black story, it is a great inversion of a racist author that had great ideas but also works to back the backdrop racist America.

Episode 1 was great. Pacing was a little off at first, but once they got on the road it was fantastic. Tackling racism in the US is absolutely in the wheelhouse of lovecraft horror, lots of lines to be drawn to stories like Innsmouth, with hostile locals and barely concealed contempt. It's a perfect fit.

2nd episode was less good. Very rushed, perhaps a little too goofy too fast. We'll see if it finds it's place in the coming episodes, but episode 2 was a bit of a slump.

Watched the 1st episode and I like it a lot. Watching the events in Kenosha while watching this made me feel so defeated and angry. I’m glad Jordan Peele and the Monkey’s Paw team are putting out stuff like this, because it’s a sorely needed breath of reality sans the actual monsters.

Hopefully the cats in this show have inoffensive names...

@facelessvixen: HA!

I read the first story in the book and was very turned off. It managed to make a shootout and the summoning of a creature beyond humanity's comprehension like really boring. And then it segues right into real estate sales. I don't need thrill-a-minute writing, but the ideas it was wrangling with were too ambitious for the rather plain style of writing.