Post
by mushgnome » Tue Aug 18, 2020 2:47 pm
Only one episode of Lovecraft Country has aired. Very promising so far! I wish all the episodes were out so I could binge-watch it. It is Jordan Peele produced, so if you liked Get Out, you'll love this. Another comparison people are making is the HBO Watchmen series, if you enjoyed that? Lots of genre-hopping, audacious tonal shifts, multifaced characters, sly wink-wink to the audience, mocking horror tropes while simultaneously milking them for full effect, etc.
The writers made the smart move that the protagonist is well-read and always has a pulp novel in his pocket. This cuts through a lot of tedious exposition. For example the first time Arkham is mentioned, instead of "Arkham? What's that?" he casually says "Oh, you mean where Herbert West the Reanimator is from?" and reaches down a book from the Lovecraft section of his bookshelf, flips it open to the right page. And there are a bunch of easter eggs and visual puns referencing John Carter, War of the Worlds, Evil Dead, etc.
Watching it helped me put my finger on what I like about Lovecraftian horror vs. cheesy slasher flicks: Instead of bad things happening to stupid people because they're foolishly in the wrong place at the wrong time ("let's make out in the abandoned insane asylum"), in Lovecraftian horror, bad things happen to smart people because they're in the right place at the right time (a decision which they soon come to regret). It's about the irresistible urge of needing to know the forbidden lore, no matter what the cost.
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