Lovecraft Country

Freedom allows Green and her collaborators to show their stunning command of the energy and spirit the story's blending of science fiction and horror requires. It means that every slice of the audience, from monster movie lovers to Dan Brown-style conspiracy thriller nuts and Indiana Jones fans, will find something to enjoy here.

There are a few minor growing pains in the first half of the first season of “Lovecraft Country”—a tin line of dialogue here, a thin supporting performance there—but nothing that holds the show back from excellence overall. If it’s not on the absolute top tier of what’s on TV in 2020, it’s not far behind at all, and I suspect the first season of this show is going to be one of the year’s great conversation starters.

Occasional missteps in pacing are a minor issue in the scheme of the series, which makes such powerful use of its excellent acting, smart scripts and vibrant visuals, it smooths over a few shaky moments. ... Like Peele's "Get Out," they use the building blocks of fantasy and horror to lure the viewer into to a story more profound and revealing. "Lovecraft" is that kind of story, both insightful and just plain scary.

The series is set in the Jim Crow era, and adequately addresses the racism and violence waged on African Americans – but it does so in a way that adds to the story, rather than rehashing trauma for our entertainment. Each character, each story, each line serves a purpose that helps to build a world of mystery, magic and Lovecraftian lore.

Even though it has a continuous story arc the show goes through tonal shifts, moving from Indiana Jones to grindhouse to bump-in-the-night scares, so that it almost feels like an anthology. But the dark, disturbing cloud of racism is ever present and seeps into every corner of the show like a wraith. Except this monster’s real.

Green has shown a gift for making the worst of our nation’s history into the staging ground for a conversation about the totality of its present. That’s on offer here, as well, but will become clearer as and if “Lovecraft Country” figures out the kind of show it wants to be. Surreality is a way to arrive at a deeper meaning, perhaps, but it requires crisply drawn characters to bring us through.

That's Lovecraft Country: A mélange of spectacular special effects, nerdy obsession, and crippling racial animus, all wrapped up in a tumbling free-form narrative that doesn't make much sense.

Judging from the negative viewer reviews, there are a lot of angry white people with Metacritic accounts.

Starts off good, looses it's way about halfway through and has a disappointing ending. To be blunt it's clear that the writers didn't know what to do after the first 2 episodes but instead of ending the series there, they had to do several more to fill out the season. The bit with the gumiho felt really out of place for a story based around Lovecraft and served no purpose to the overall plot. It was just fancy filler. There's also a lot of "lovecraft" was a racist storytelling that feels really old in 2026. I mean yeah he kind of was but applying current day morals to someone who lived about 100 years ago makes you look much more childish. The funny thing is that lovecraft will be remembered long after the writers of this are dead, this show on the other hand has already been forgotten.

If they can change the title from Lovecraft country to something like American folk tales, that could be better. As a show it is good for watching. Lovecraft is different from vampire, ghost, serial kills....

It's a lot of eccentric hooey, and I have the entire season. Inventive but full of nonsensical magic and derivative nonsense. One episode is even very Indiana Jones. The only reason I stick with this overblown schlock is Jurnee Smollett, truly a great beauty and bright light without parallel. I want to marry her -- is that asking too much?

Sometimes it's silly fun and interesting. But most of the time it's blaming white people, especially white men. These are supposedly to blame for everything that goes wrong in the life of a black person, so the portrayal. The killing and bloody torture of white people is presented as justified and less bad, since they all embody "evil" in themselves. Also, this TV show has nothing to do with the stories of Lovecraft. This is misleading...