“Lovecraft Country”: Cthulhu and the Klan

It’s hard to imagine a piece of media more perfectly timed than “Lovecraft Country.” Released amid America’s long overdue reckoning with racism, the television series manages to combine more traditional elements of horror with the cruelty of the Jim Crow era to provide an in-depth history of the U.S.’s complex relationship with race. The HBO series is based on the 2016 novel by Matt Ruff and takes the format of a chain of largely independent story arcs, with each episode tackling different ideas and utilizing different tropes from horror, science fiction, and melodrama. While “Lovecraft Country” is far from special as a work of horror exclusively, it succeeds in using the supernatural to enhance its commentary on historical and social issues.

The plot starts by introducing Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors), an African American Korean War veteran and a longtime fan of the works of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. After receiving a letter from his missing father, he sets off on a road trip through a segregated America to Arkham, Massachusetts, the town that supposedly inspired many of Lovecraft’s writings. Accompanying him are childhood friend and civil rights activist, Letitia “Leti” Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), and his uncle George (Courtney B. Vance), who is writing a travel guide for Black Americans. Each episode of the series has a largely self-contained narrative, with plots ranging from an expedition through a booby-trapped tomb to the classic horror trope of a haunted house, the only connecting elements being the prejudice of ‘50s America and the Sons of Adam, a secretive cult of powerful sorcerers. Every sub-arc in the show serves to progress the conflict between this dark society and the main characters as the former maneuvers to implement a cryptic plan using Atticus’s blood and the biblical Book of Names and the latter tries to learn more about their enigmatic enemy. Despite being the only recurring threat in the show, the Sons of Adam often feel like a tool to bridge more interesting themes and episode ideas. Much of the tension in the show comes not from ghosts, cultists, or monsters, but the violent racism directed at the Black main cast, at a time when such danger was unavoidable. It is in this way that “Lovecraft Country” reinterprets and subverts its source material—the racist beliefs that plague the writings of Lovecraft himself.

Lovecraft is overwhelmingly controversial and for good reason. While his unique brand of existential dread and unknowable danger revolutionized horror and inspires artists like Stephen King and Guillermo del Toro, he is almost as well known in modern times for his horrific racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia. Lovecraft was a man with many fears, most of which come through in his works. Some of those fears, like non-Euclidean geometry, New York City, the color gray, and temperatures below freezing, are quite funny and clearly represented in his many short stories. Just as present in his writing, however, is his fear of minorities, immigrants, and particularly racial mixing. Many of his narratives seem allegorical for his anxieties about the shifting demographics and increasing multiculturalism in communities. His grotesque creatures, which manifest his dislikes of things like sea life and slime, can be interpreted to represent his other fears, such as minorities and people of other cultures, or larger ideas such as the far-right theory of white genocide.

Needless to say, any piece of media attempting to bring Lovecraft into the modern day has a lot of work to do. One way “Lovecraft Country”' in particular projects a progressive message while still utilizing common Lovecraftian tropes is the reversal of the typical roles found within them. Nowhere is this more obvious than with the Sons of Adam, the main antagonists of the show. Though Lovecraft often features cults in his stories, they are usually painted as satanic, hedonistic, and compose of people of color, in opposition to a white American or Western European protagonist. They essentially embody everything Lovecraft found foreign and detestable, juxtaposed with what he knew and supported.

“Lovecraft Country” flips this on its head, with Sons of Adam being a Ku Klux Klan-esque, Evangelical secret society standing against an all-Black main cast. What was previously written to be foreign and unnerving to Lovecraft’s audience is revised, not only to be less racist but also to feel closer to home for the audience. Most Americans are well aware of the existence of violent white supremacist groups in our nation and its history, and few will find the same mystery in the Sons of Adam as Lovecraft injected into his tales. Thus, Lovecraft liked to focus outward in his stories and feared that which was alien to him, and his audience, “Lovecraft Country” looks inward. Instead of its horror coming from the possibilities of the unknown, the threats distinct from normal life or community, it points to the problems present in society today. “Lovecraft Country” chooses to find horror in the ugliest parts of familiar life, making the show stand out not only as a reworking of Lovecraft’s works, but also as a vehicle for meaningful social and political commentary.

Such changes are common throughout the show and may seem confusing before one considers that other than a few tropes and references, “Lovecraft Country” isn’t trying to be especially Lovecraftian. The series aims for a more classic version of horror, and sometimes, such as the Indiana Jones-style treasure hunt in episode four, it comes across as more action-drama than anything else. While this is disappointing, it does make a lot of sense: Lovecraft’s style of writing doesn’t translate well into a visual medium. It’s hard to convince an audience of unknowable, inescapable danger when the supposedly incomprehensible monster is rendered in CGI and looks like all of the other grey and slimy behemoths that fill every movie and show. The few times a Lovecraftian horror does appear in “Lovecraft Country,” it falls flat, as no matter how much shaky camera work and dark lighting the director uses, there’s always a sense of anticlimax following its reveal. Slapping a bunch of eyes and teeth on something fails to shock and awe when people have been used to photorealistic dragons for years. When the intangible is made tangible, horror is turned into a gimmick.

But in its pursuit of a more classic style of horror, “Lovecraft Country” starts to show the limitations of a television series. There’s a large number of topics and subplots that have to be touched on in every arc, with every conflict being far too rushed to build any real tension. The self-contained nature of each hour-long episode starts to cause problems when a new, temporary conflict is created and resolved every time, in addition to the development of the show’s lore, exploration of its time period, and commentary on politics and American history. The slow build that good horror relies on can’t fit alongside all this, leading to the feeling that every moment of dread zooms by before it even starts.

Everything in “Lovecraft Country” feels slightly too fast, and nowhere is this more present than its character development. Every character is introduced with an interesting backstory or complex worldview that is pushed to the back as the plot chugs on. Atticus is implied to have had an entire life in Korea that he left behind, but the show doesn’t have time to elaborate on this any further, so it’s never revisited. The same is true for Leti’s civil rights activism. Montrose (Michael K. Williams), Atticus’s father, is a gay man at a time when homosexuality is still considered a mental illness, but even that takes a back seat as the main cast is far too busy fighting ghosts or running through a dungeon. Perhaps the most egregious example of this is the strange romantic relationship between Atticus and Leti, the two main leads. Any development in their relationship has to be done with explicit dialogue or a magic hallucination, with the audience having to be told the connection is there whenever it becomes plot-relevant. For a show so centered on its characters, “Lovecraft Country” seems reluctant to focus on them instead of the plot, leaving much of the cast feeling vague and unfocused.

“Lovecraft Country” moves quickly. It’s an ambitious show, with every episode aiming to cram complex world-building, horror, history, and social commentary into an hour. While this can make the viewing experience feel rushed and many of the characters frustratingly unfinished, the series still has plenty of worthwhile ideas. Its reconciliation of classic Lovecraftian tropes with a more progressive, less horrifying message creates a fascinating dynamic between the show and its inspiration and does a genuinely good job of discussing American history. Despite the problems “Lovecraft Country” might have as a television series, its larger messages still manage to come through to make the show not only entertaining, but also important in these turbulent times.