User Reviews

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.

Looking at the first episode I would say that the characters are engaging and interesting, the episode is well paced, holding my attention throughout but I didn’t like the ending, it was a little farcical. The interpretation of H.P. Lovecraft seemed far too tangible in this episode but certainly I will be watching more episodes because of the characters and the production quality whilst hoping that they get a little less tangible and a little more Lovecraft. Sadly getting into episode two is where I totally lose interest with watered down characters, some cheesy effects and it just feels totally lost in what it’s trying to do. I can’t bring myself to watch more episodes. The early promise was well and truly broken.

Culture war as entertainment? This is trash. Need proof? No second season. HBO, Disney, Amazon, etc. are all slow to learn this. Don't lecture us, just entertain us.

Top shelf drama with complicated characters. Wonderful Lovecraftian horror, adapted for the mid 20th century

Another fail with HBO allowing racist content to breed hate and a woke culture.

Lovecraft was a brilliant author who founded a whole new genre. We still read and admire it even after one hundred years. "Lovecraft country" is a dishonest show that piggy-backs on Lovecraft's fame and popularity. It's a weird Frankenstein-style cross-genre monster crudely sewn from 60 percent of black population trauma from the colonial past, 15 percent really primitive jumpscare horror movie, 20 percent everyday life of black people, 10 percent of random sex scenes, because why not? and 5 percent are random rants on various topics. It could be scary, or bizarre (like early Jackson movies?!) or contemplative or thought provoking, but it's neither, because it just falls apart too quickly. Let's just hope it at least jump-started the career of the frankly not very talented writer and other feminist/political activists who clustered up around the project. Watchable... it is not.

The first episode was OK but it fast went downhill after that. The writing was awful! Clearly just another attempt at demonising white people for the sake of it.

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?

Wholesome black family. Sneering white men being eaten by monsters. Basically what happens when Black Lives Matter is married to 1920's supernatural horror.

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...

On the bright side; - Solid acting performances overall. Michael K. Williams and Courtney B. Vance couldn´t act badly even if they wanted, and the rest of the cast is very competent - Except for the last episode, wich is boring as hell, the series has a good pace. It is not boring for the most part, even if it is infuriating at the same time - The popular music scores are ok. Not the incidental music, wich is generic and poor, and do not matches well with the action. On the wrong side: - It has nothing to do with Lovecraft. I know some people say that this is not a valid point because it is an adaptation from a novel, not from Lovecaft´s work, but this is crap. It just means that the novel have the same weakness. If you name something after Lovecraft, you can´t seriusly expect his fans won´t show up to check it out. Either you are a fool or you are swindling the audience. This is just a generic horror show, with Lovecraft´s name on it, for no good reason. - I know much has been said about the woke nonesense on this show, but almost all of it shortcomings erupt from it. It really seemed as if they had a checklist or something, oherwise I can´t understand the necessity of things like a full frontal nude from a native american transgender, a Diana Ross-like interdimensional alien being, the whitewashing of north korean comunist agents, the blue haired woman, the transhumanism, or the extended family propaganda, just to name a few things. - The dialogues are very bad. Since all of the performers are good at their job, this is somewhat eclipsed, but it is there - The plot is mediocre at best. The main concern of the writers wasn´t to tell a good story, but to promote an agenda, and, as always when that is the case, it shows. There is more concern in interseccional coherence - if such a thing can exist- than to explain why the characters act the way they do. Unless of course, like the writers seem to think, all of this can be expained just by your race and gender, in the sense that just by being a white heterosexual person you are a racist **** at best, and that all of the bad traits of the BIPOC characters can be explained by their Heterosexual CIS-normative, racial or capitalist internalized behavior patterns of self-hatred. - In the end, you can´t create something good if your only motivaton is racism - even if you don´t wanna assume that it is - cynicism and identitary politics. Even the best actress in the world can´t pull off a line like "I wanna kill white people". If you are in the middle of a shooting with your life at risk, you don´t care if someone calls you "girl". If a man eating monster jumps in front of you, you stop pointing your shotgun to the black people you were trying to arrest, and star firing at the goddam monster! I assume this was suposed to be a fantasy - horror show but with an historical set-up, aiming to provoke reflection about recent past injustices, wich is of course completelly fine. But if you are going to do that, lying about the past, and denying any trace of basic human decency to a complete race and sexual orientation, is not the way to go.

This is a glorious mess, some of it is bad and you have to grin and bare it, but some of it is just wild.. yes it is true that the script is racist to White people but I'm sure its a lot less uncomfortable to be a White person and feel a couple nasty burns from the show than be a Black person and watch graphic depictions of historical White on Black violence that is also included in the show.

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....

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

There is always the best of a bad lot in every place or moment in history but hbo doesn't seem to acknowledge that. The movie doesn't make sense on many levels :characters and monsters are uninteresting, lovecraft is just a bait. There is no lore. Plot is disconnected and rushed. Probably the worst show I've ever seen. I wish it never existed

This show is HBO's attempt to cash grab based on the Black Lives Matter movement that currently enjoys great support. The show, intentionally, incredibly racist... just not against black people. The pulp plotlines are relatively fun, but the rest of the show is propaganda. Cannot recommend.

Was it good? Not really. I enjoyed some of it for what it was. I've read the book, so I knew it wasn't particularly Lovecraftian horror. That being said, the book and show do draw upon Lovecraft's other works, introducing concepts of adventure, the occult and magic, even sci-fi weird tales. Are they what people think when someone says Lovecraft? No, but they're still Lovecraftian. A ghost story, or visiting other lands still falls well within the scope of Lovecraft's works. The acting was great for what it was. The pacing was awful, I almost dropped watching the rest of the series after episode 2. Make no mistake, there is a clear agenda in this show. Being BIPOC and LGBT, I get it. But anyone who denies that this show is anything but outrage pr0n needs to get their head checked. You can enjoy it, I did at times. But just at least admit it is what it is: pure, unadulterated racially-charged revenge self-insert fodder. Not convinced? I read the book as well, literally every change made to the show from the book was to give an opportunity for the main characters to kill someone. The changes from the book also clearly delineates that anything morally grey done by black characters is justifiable, no black character ever works against the main crew or the central thesis: black is good, right down to the shoggoths. And the material that wasn't based on the book? A feeding trough full of outrage. Now that's got some spice, not like white people food! Again, you can like that, more power to you. It really does highlighted some important moments in black history... in some questionably researched ways. But the presentation: you better be able to eat pork, 'cause the fisting you're about to get is full of ham. If adding any excuse to change the plot to kill a white person and forced revisionist history is what the writers consider adding the 'authentic black perspective' to a white man's book, just... yikes. Unlike most detractors, I actually think the depictions of racism were appropriate. Yes, white people really were that racist. Here's where I found it grating though, there were scant depictions of racism other than violent overt ones. We get a small glimpse of the insidious nature of it in a couple episodes (Ruby and Hippolyta [its Hip-paw-lit-uh, not Hippo-lighter, 'it's Greek']), but the bulk of it is just shallow 'white actors forcing themselves to grimace at black actors.' It's not well done. And when the show does try to introduce nuanced concepts like 'there were some nice white folks too' or 'us Korean-Americans feel like perpetual visitors' it's relegated to a throwaway one-liner. Merely mentioning it doesn't mean the show has actually addressed those concepts in the slightest. Speaking of lack of depth. The series added a whole lot of elements that just scream 'tick a checkmark.' It's not enough to introduce racism, but LGBT issues and feminism as well. The show tries to stuff so many modern social issues into a show set in the 1950s. Like, it was nice to see ballroom culture, that was cool. But that's where the reaction ends, 'oh that's cool.' The best I can say is that it's treatment of LGBT and feminism was mostly tasteful if vapid. The political speeches at the end of each episode? What could've been a moment to cap off each episode, where we can just bask in the raw emotions that the actors were portraying, instead we're reminded that the writers have ham for fists and we're treated with yet another sermon. Your audience is not stupid. It didn't give me the feels, it gave me brain damage. But, quite possibly the most infuriating thing, is that the writers commit some of the sins BIPOC constantly berate pale writers for: 1) Minorities as disposibles: they set a world record for fastest first-contact to genocide. 2) Cultural appropriation: The portrayal of Korean animism... was questionable. It's at the level of Avatar (TLA). Harmless, but guess white people aren't the only ones ripping from cultures purely aesthetically, without 'letting marginalized voices' speak. 3) You need to educate yourself: Last time I checked, Nigeria's still waiting for the Dahomey royal family's descendants in Benin to apologize... for enslaving its peoples. But sure, have their royal guard fight... their number two customer, Confederate America? Or, how two-spirit as a First Nations concept was conceived in the 80s, not centuries ago. Yahima would've referred to themself in the culturally appropriate manner of the Arawak, you social construct colonizer! Like, educate yourself. 4)Hypocrisy: All the belittling done by the main crew against non-black POC in a show about racism... and they're instantly forgiven... I-- tl;dr -- Lovecraft meets Chicken Soup for the Basic-Black Soul. Didn't realize I was watching an award-bait self-help show.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This show is as bad like the original book. There was a cool idea - to show that the worst horror is a racism. But in Lovecraft Country - black racists hate white racists and there is no a single good character. Boring, depressing and unpleasant. Gave four points because on metacritic has "no censorship" and a score below 4 is simply not preserved.

I really enjoyed this series and by the end of the first episode, I was hooked. The series isn't perfect but I enjoyed watching the characters. I thought the editing was well done to convey a Lovecraftian universe with elements of cosmic horror.

This is a strange one in the wrong way. What I mean by that is how the show is a quality rolercoster, and this is after watching the 10 episodes that are season 1. One episode can be an easy 10 while the next can be a clear 2. The acting is great, they all do their part and they do them well, that is minus the white racists that go from believeble and all the way to where you can see on the acters faces that they are attempting to portray comic book villains rather then racists pos. The racism shown therefor goes from being eye opening to being forced into a scene just because of reasons. Soundtrack: When we get music from that age it is good, when they throw in the hiphop is just bad and does not fit. Whoever made that decision needs to be asked why they tought it was a good idea to mix in modern music. The writing and direction is where this show goes all over the place. Some episodes are just great storytelling while other episodes feel wasted as they focus on random stuff that in the long run does not matter. But the biggest sin is that the makers of the show fails to understand lovecraftian horror, they reveal secrets as soon as they can rather then holding on them, they misstake horror with gore. And finally. Do not listen to the racists who gave it a 0 because the series show that racism existed during a time when white people were pretty damn racist. And while I love Lovecraft I do understand that he was a racist, like almost everyone else who lived at that time. My advise, even as I give it a 5, is to watch the first episodes and if you can't handle the lows of the **** episode give the rest of it a pass.

I had such high hopes for this series and it was a huge disappointment. The story is meandering and nonsensical. There's no attempt to make any of the characters psychologically believable. Ultimately, it feels cartoonish and juvenile.

Just boring. The first episode is really good, the following ones are weaker and weaker, and eventually I only wanted it to finish so that I can go and watch something else. I was bored to hell. Don't lose your time on this. Also, the main protagonists are terrible.

This is a must show for this century! I'm a world were we still fight against racism this show do what shows must be, show the reality of things about past present and future. I'm a fiction world dominated by monsters we see that the biggest monsters are actually hateful people themselves. The show get all this painful history and show us in a incredible and vivid way were we see the pain from each character. This is a show that must be seen by every person! About the development of the story and the characters, I loved everything, the culmination for me was the penultimate episode where we can understand the fruit of a character's pain, however during the episodes we sometimes have the introduction of some secondary characters that are not so good developed, we were left without an outcome and without understanding the objective of these characters for the series, in addition some objectives of the characters end up not being very well explained and causing a difficulty in reading the character and its aspirations

Unfortunately, by the 8th episode, I have lost interest in Lovecraft Country. I have 2 episodes to go and it feels like a slog. Part of me doesn't really want to finish it so I can move on to Raised By Wolves. The plot is getting too convoluted. I understand each episode is a different genre, but the title "Lovecraft Country" is misleading. There aren't really hardly ANY Lovecraft monsters - it revolves heavily around magic/witchcraft. The Shoggoth monster doesn't really look much like the actual Shoggoth from the stories, either. But I do like its design. I'll give it that. Unfortunately, the acting is one big ham sandwich. Most of the characters aren't very redeemable, either. One character, Letitia, is very under developed too. She needed more character development but I guess they cut that for time. (We got more character development for a random lover of Atticus' overseas.) I like the social commentary on race. That's the doing of the author who wrote the book. However, that stuff does become exhausting after 8 episodes. It's important to demonstrate but I'm sensing that it's the primary focal point of the narrative, with dark fantasy peppered in here and there. It's also becoming very repetitive, which is starting to wear on me as a viewer. I haven't seen the final episode, but I can't imagine there will be a season 2 of this show. The show is based on a single novel and you can't sustain a long-running show by repeating the same message against racism in not just every episode, but every five minutes of every episode. I embraced its message at first, which brought tears to my eyes, but now I feel desensitized. That's the opposite of what should be happening with that message. I fear that the showrunners are overdoing it so much that they're ruining it.

Great show. Some weaknesses but I really enjoyed it. And it pissed off the racists. So that's a plus.

Big disappointment. Instead of getting things right, and help fight racism in all forms, we can see TV series where is actually glorifying racist acts against white people. All lives matter. ALL.

Final apoteótico. Lovecraft Country une terror, ficção e a luta contra racismo para mostrar que o mundo não pode ser dominado por uma raça que se acha superior e que os negros devem ser tratados como seres humanos e não como escoria.

Amazing, need to watch it!! Every episode is different from one another and it gets better each and every episode

Perfeita demais ,icônica ,memorável e atemporal. O soco nos racistas nojentos

This show started out strong, with monsters and deep Lovecraft vibes. It quickly went downhill with convoluted storylines, interpersonal intrigue rather than conspiracy, long rambling soliloquies, and a complete shift in tone. It went from a Lovecraft story through the Black gaze to a jumbled fantasy mess that happened to have 'Lovecraft' in the title. Skip it.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

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

First of all this is based on a book called lovecraft country and not books by lovecraft. Series are stealing all of possible horror and adventure movie ideas, even from Indiana Jones and the goonies. The most bizarre is the sado masochistic obsession with racism undertones that seems like a competing plot with the original horror story.

This series has nothing to do with the work of H. P. Lovecraft, so the name is completely misleading. It's actually the story of a man driving around the southern USA in the 1950s, looking for his father and encountering racist Scooby Doo villains. The writing and characterization are crude, and people in this series consistently do things that have no apparent motivation that would be consistent with human psychology. This show is dominated by its political message, which is that racism is bad. Most people would agree with that laudable sentiment, and would expect more from a show in terms of social and cultural insight as well as entertainment. Lovecraft Country fails to deliver, hammering this obvious and simple message home time after time through the means of cartoonishly evil antagonists and absurd situations. Lovecraft Country is a wasted opportunity to do something interesting and sophisticated with this material.

First episode I am like wow this is friggin awesome. The acting, setting and story is just brilliant. And then you add some very Lovecraftian monster. Just perfect. Ufortonately it is a bit downhill from the first episode. I have played a lot of CoC Rpg and think that there is a lot of Lovecraft in Lovecraft country. But the plot is just not as good and interesting as the first episode suggests. Still worth a look.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Just race baiting using Lovecrafts name for attention. This show is trash and just wants a platform to whine.

Preface: I am a graduate of a well known historically Black university with a degree in Black History. This show is getting brigaded for having racial tones so that has to be established before I say this: That being said, this is show is TERRIBLE. I completely understand what they're trying to go for and it misses the mark completely. The plot is nonsensical, the dialogue is terrible, and the magic aspect of the show is downright moronic. I've been watching this along with friends and we've tried so hard to enjoy it but it feels like an insult to our intelligence. I have no idea how Jordan Peele is involved with this because it is far below his regular caliber of production. Every metaphor, allusion and easter egg hits like a brick. I've never felt so insulted from a show being on the nose before this one. It watches like a poor man's "Watchmen" (HBO) or the fever dream of a 19 year old Hotep. It saddens me that this is getting praise simply because of the political environment and Peele's involvement.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Very mediocre fantasy; the world-building was very poorly done - I felt we were hopping from one set to the next. Then infuse it with 2020 political agendas and you have the recipe for one painful first episode.

First off, need to point out that there is a lot of racist comments. And I'm not referring to the negative reviews, im talking about the positive reviews (8-10s). All I can i say is they are not scoring the show fair (this goes for the 0s as well) and making racist comments about white people doesn't help. The show has its moments but lacks in a lot of areas. Acting/dialogue : the acting is decent through out the show, only a few actors/actresses do a poor job, but the dialogue is over the top cheesy and cringy at times. The main characters also seem to suffer from memory loss and have no problems killing tons of people, just as long as their white. Visuals: for the most part are decent. It gets a little too dark at times which make it hard to see whats going on, but the monster designs are great. Costumes are on point and so are the sets. Story: its a mess. The tone of the show switches too much and that makes it distracting. The episodes gradually start to lose traction/direction and start becoming a huge convoluted mess. There are parts that will make your eyes roll or make you question what was the point of that? Or, how did that character get there? How did they know to do that, there was no explanation prior. There is also the lack of HP lovecraft story. Its more of a vibe than a HP lovecraft adaptation. Which is disappointing for cosmic horror fans. In regards to the racism, there should be a balance, for me its too much and extremely exaggerated. To the point its comical. One minute there's monsters/horror and then the next 40 minutes its all about racism. We don't need a reminder every 5 min of how racist it was back in the jim crow days, or over the top racism making every white person they interact with is racist and ignorant. It all becomes trite very quick. Also making racist comments about white people on top of that, doesn't help. The show has potential but doesnt know what it should be. Its confusing at times and lacks balance.

This series is a lot of things and it handles it brilliantly. It's like its playing homage to all the books mentioned in the series as well as more modern cinematic works. Finally a series who dares to be different, problematic, deep and gripping. The characters are all very good and they come in all shades of grays.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

This isn't directed by JJ abrams but has all the hallmarks of his influence: random spectacle that makes no sense but just adds wow. Editing often makes no sense, tossing context out the window and worst of all: WALL TO WALL MUSIC, the sure sign of creatives who lack confidence in their storytelling. I wanted to like this and while I stuck in for a bit, I ultimately realized I didn't care at all for a single character and that is the sad reason I've decided to stop watching.

Utterly predictable "anti-racist" racism. Just what you look for in your entertainment.

In this series there is nothing from Lovecraft, the director and screenwriter of this picture, I think they have not even seen his books, nor have they read anything.

A terrible adaptation - bad over the top acting, bad tempered men, passively sexy women, every character is a trope.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

Disappointing. The first episode of this show was great and showed potential, but by now episode 5 it has completely lost its way. The characters are layered and the subversion of Lovecraft's horrors to display the horrors of racism was interesting, but the narrative has become heavily disjointed and it's difficult to build any connection with what's going on. And now it has descended into the usual over-the-top HBO gore and sex fest, trying to fill a gaping hole of substance and coherence. Shame.