Lovecraft Country (TV series)
| Television series | |
|---|---|
| German title | Lovecraft Country |
| Original title | Lovecraft Country |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Year (s) | since 2020 |
| Production company |
Bad Robot Productions , Monkeypaw Productions , Warner Bros. Television |
| length | 53-68 minutes |
| Episodes | 2+ in 1 season |
| genre | Horror , drama |
| Theme music | Sinnerman - Alice Smith |
| idea | Misha Green |
| production |
JJ Abrams , Jordan Peele |
| music | Laura Karpman , Raphael Saadiq |
| First broadcast | August 16, 2020 on HBO |
| occupation | |
Lovecraft Country is an American horror series based on an idea by Misha Green and based on a novel of the same name by Matt Ruff . The series is produced by Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams, among others . The ten episode, so far only planned season, has been shown for the first time on HBO and Sky since August 2020 .
action
The African American Atticus Freeman has received a cryptic letter from his father Montrose, in which he informs him of a "secret inheritance of his family", a birthright that has been withheld from them. In the mid-1950s, after the disappearance of his father, he went to Massachusetts in the company of his uncle George, who wrote the “ Safe Negro Travel Guide ”, and his childhood friend Letitia. With the help of George's book, black travelers in the United States during the Jim Crow era can find gas stations, garages, eateries, and neighborhoods they wo n't turn away . You travel through the United States and the trail leads to Lovecraft Country in New England , more precisely to Ardham, where the strictest racial laws existed at the time. The castle-like property of the influential Braithwhite family, blonde and blue-eyed super whites, turns out to be the home of a racist secret lodge, the "Sons of Adam". While father Titus heads the ominous secret society, his daughter Christina drives around in a silver Rolls-Royce Sedanca.
In addition to the white Suprematists , the three complete strangers in the area have to defend themselves against shapeshifters, demons and monsters that seem to rise directly from the sea. Because Atticus loves the pulp stories by HP Lovecraft and Edgar Rice Burroughs , even if the heroes are always whites in them, such dark figures are nothing completely new to him.
occupation
Main cast
| actor | image | role | Main role (episodes) |
Voice actor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Majors | Atticus "Tic" Freeman | 1.01– | ||
| Jurnee Smollett |
|
Letitia "Leti" Lewis, Atticus' childhood friend | 1.01– | |
| Courtney B. Vance |
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|
George Freeman, the uncle of Atticus and author of the "Safe Negro Travel Guide" | 1.01– | |
| Abbey Lee |
|
Christina Braithwhite, daughter of Titus Braithwhite, the leader of the "Sons of Adam" | 1.01– | |
| Michael K. Williams |
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|
Montose Freeman, Atticus' Freemans missing father | 1.01– | |
| Aunjanue Ellis |
|
Hippolyta Freeman, Atticus' aunt | 1.01– | |
| Jamie Harris | Sheriff Eustace Hunt | 1.01– | ||
| Wunmi Mosaku | Ruby Baptiste | 1.01– | ||
| Jason Ambrose | Deputy Jimmy | |||
| Jada Harris | Diana Freeman, George's daughter | 1.01– |
Minor characters
| actor | role | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Jonathon Pavlowski | Burke | |
| Lucius Baston | Phil Hodges | |
| London Riley Pigott | Side walk girl | |
| Matthew Alan | Deputy Eastchurch | |
| Jamie Chung | Yeh-ah | |
| Tony Domino | Bus passenger | |
| Demetrius Grosse | Marvin Baptiste | |
| Cyrah Hill | reporter | |
| Jeffrey Johnson | Mister Lads | |
| Kathleen Lawlor | Older Woman on the Bus | |
| Christopher Long | Dancer | |
| Naomi Mack | Carmen | |
| Keon Rahzeem Mitchell | James | |
| Kyler Porche | Leo | |
| Brian A. Prince | Shoggoth # 1 | |
| Will Redmond | Terry | |
| Michael Rose | Titus Braithwhite | |
| Steven Serbones | Phillip | |
| Maceo Smedley | Gil | |
| Jordan Patrick Smith | William | |
| Jennifer Waithera Waweru | Anarcha |
production
History of origin
In May 2017, it was announced that Jordan Peele's production company Monkeypaw Productions , JJ Abrams ' Bad Robot and Warner Bros. Television will be working on a series adaptation of Matt Ruff's horror novel Lovecraft Country for HBO . The novel of the same name by Matt Ruff is about the 22-year-old Atticus Black, who goes in search of his father together with his childhood friend Letitia and his uncle George in the 1950s. On your journey you will have to deal with both the everyday horrors of white America and evil spirits that seem straight out of the creepy stories that George is infatuated with. The German translation of the novel, which originally appeared in 2016, was published by Hanser in May 2018.
Lovecraft Country also tells the story of a struggle for survival in the racist United States at the time of the Jim Crow laws, which foresaw the segregation of blacks and whites. The characters are confronted with the terror of racial segregation and experience the horror with a sci-fi twist à la HP Lovecraft , says Elisabeth Korn from Moviepilot , and the thematic similarities to Peele's film Get Out are difficult to overlook.
Like the novel of the same name, the series consists of loosely linked chapters in which Atticus gets into ever new supernatural entanglements around a box of magicians who lead him into a haunted house or into an underground labyrinth, but the series nevertheless sets its own accents, according to Sofia Glasl from the film service . Robert Lloyd writes in the Los Angeles Times that like Ruff's book, which is a series of interconnected short stories, the series has a semi-anthological structure that plays with different types of stories and moods.
The series creator and showrunner is Misha Green . The French director Yann Demange directed the first episode and Daniel Sackheim the two other episodes . The music was composed by Laura Karpman and Raphael Saadiq .
title
In addition to the title of Ruff's novel in the stories of HP Lovecraft and his Cthulhu myth, Lovecraft Country is also an area in Massachusetts that he invented and later named after him. This is also where the fictional town of Innsmouth is located . The most detailed description of the city and its history can be found in his 1931 story Shadows over Innsmouth (original title The Shadow Over Innsmouth ), which was first published in 1936. Also located Arkham in Lovecraft Country. The city of Salem is said to have served her as a model. Arkham also appears in numerous stories by the author that revolve around the Cthulhu myth. Arkham (for Arkham Asylum ) is also an important location in Gotham City in the Batman universe. This becomes Ardham in the series.
Marketing and Publishing
The first trailer was presented at the beginning of May 2020. The ten episode, so far only planned season, has been shown on HBO for the first time since August 16, 2020 . Since August 17, 2020, the series has been available in the original English version in Germany on Sky Ticket , in Austria on Sky X and via Sky Q on demand. The German version will start on November 13, 2020 on Sky Antlantic.
Episode list
| No. | Original title | First broadcast in the USA | Director | script |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sundown | 16 Aug 2020 | Yann Demange | Misha Green |
| 2 | Whitey's on the Moon | 23 Aug 2020 | Daniel Sackheim | Misha Green |
| 3 | Holy Ghost | Aug 30, 2020 | Daniel Sackheim | Misha Green |
| 4th | A History of Violence | 6 Sep 2020 | Victoria Mahoney | Wes Taylor |
| 5 | Strange case | 13 Sep 2020 | Cheryl Dunye | Misha Green, Jonathan Kidd , Sonya Winton |
| 6th | Meet Me in Daegu | Sep 20 2020 | - | Misha Green, Kevin Lau |
| 7th | I am. | - | - | - |
| 8th | Jig-A-Bobo | - | - | - |
| 9 | Rewind 1921 | - | - | - |
| 10 | Full circle | - | - | - |
reception
The first and so far only season of the series was able to convince 96 percent of the Rotten Tomatoes critics . Again and again, parallels to the superhero saga Watchmen were noted, HBO's latest mix of social criticism and fantastic elements, in which the legendary graphic novel was overwritten with real events in African American history.
Roger Ebert critic Brian Tallerico calls Lovecraft Country a wonderfully entertaining series that is unexpectedly bloody and sexy in equal measure and is reminiscent of the HBO smash hit True Blood , but also of old adventure series. Each episode of Lovecraft Country plays with dualities, on the one hand with the legendary monster storytelling of the HP Lovecraft model, on the other hand this is intertwined with the stories of racist violence, and thus in US history. HP Lovecraft's portrayal of the real horror that lies beneath the smiling face of the country makes Tallerico wonder if there could be a better writer through which to expose the current systemic problems in the history of this country.
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Sofia Glasl from Filmdienst writes that the series has no shortage of fast-paced and sometimes surprisingly bloody action scenes that fit in with a very entertaining format that is similar to an anthology. The clear platforming dramaturgy leaves room for additional levels of reflection, which the script artfully weaves into the plot. About the interweaving of a horror of everyday as well as systemic racism as in Jordan Peeles Get Out or Wir says Glasl, in Lovecraft Country it is more about conveying the real fear that weighed on blacks when, for example, they are in the so-called “Sundown Towns” “Must have disappeared from the road before sunset. How up-to-date Lovecraft Country is, although it was settled in the 1950s, becomes clear in small, wonderfully cinematic details, such as an advertising panel for “Aunt Jemima's Pankakes”, which advertised with a black woman in the logo until 2020 racist stereotype was only removed after the protests following the death of African American George Floyd.
Lili Hering describes Lovecraft Country in Zeit Online as a mixture of The Walking Dead , Poltergeist , Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Beale Street , when the series combines classic horror, zombies and haunted houses with sci-fiction, slasher, action, social criticism and a bit of romance, and it all looks amazing. Even if the series plays with the allure of a black superhero epic, it is many things at the same time, and it is interesting how HP Lovecraft's openly expressed racism is processed: “ Misha Green lets his monsters from The Outsider and Others and many other stories on texts by James Baldwin . ”Kathleen Hildebrand remarked in the Süddeutsche Zeitung that the series should not only be understood as social commentary, but also as a big, crazy celebration of the horror genre.
literature
- Matt Ruff: Lovecraft Country . Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 2018. ISBN 978-3-446-25820-4 . ( Reading sample , 43 pages)
Web links
- Lovecraft Country in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Lovecraft Country - Official Trailer from HBO on YouTube (Video)
- Lovecraft Country series information from HBO
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Lovecraft Country. In: Filmdienst. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
- ^ Alan Sepinwall: 'Lovecraft Country': A Nightmare on Main Street. In: Rolling Stone, August 7, 2020.
- ^ A b Brian Tallerico: HBO's Lovecraft Country is Wicked Smart Television. In: rogerebert.com, August 12, 2020.
- ^ A b Matthias Halbig: America of Nightmares: HBO series “Lovecraft Country” as a statement on “Black Lives Matter”. In: rnd.de, August 16, 2020.
- ↑ Joe Otterson: HBO's 'Lovecraft Country' Adds Jonathan Majors in Lead Role. In: Variety, May 2, 2018.
- ↑ Lesley Goldberg: Jurnee Smollett-Bell to Star in HBO's 'Lovecraft Country'. In: The Hollywood Reporter, April 26, 2018.
- ^ John Squires: Courtney B. Vance and Others Join Jordan Peele and JJ Abrams' HBO Series "Lovecraft Country". In: bloody-disgusting.com, June 20, 2018.
- ^ Grant Hermanns: Michael K. Williams Signs On For HBO's Lovecraft Country. In: ComingSoon.net. Evolve Media, LLC., October 10, 2018, accessed August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Tony Sokol and Joseph Baxter: Lovecraft Country: HBO Series Adds Tony Goldwyn. In: denofgeek.com, July 10, 2019.
- ↑ Helgard Haß: 'Lovecraft Country': JJ Abrams and 'Get Out' director Jordan Peele produce horror anthology series for HBO In: filmstarts.de, May 17, 2017.
- ^ Christian Endres: News from Lovecraft Country. In: The future. Random House Publishing Group , March 6, 2018, accessed August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Lovecraft Country - Director found for JJ Abrams and Jordan Peele series. In: moviepilot.de, March 8, 2018.
- ^ Robert Lloyd: Review: 'Lovecraft Country' is a middle finger to a century of racist sci-fi. In: Los Angeles Times . August 6, 2020, accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Salamishah Tillet: Living While Black in 'Lovecraft Country'. In: The New York Times . August 7, 2020, accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Jennifer Maas: 'Lovecraft Country' Creator Misha Green on 'Reclaiming' the 'Blatant' Racism of Author HP Lovecraft's Work. In: TheWrap. August 12, 2020, accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ^ Everything to Know About Lovecraft Country. In: hbo.com. Home Box Office , accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Nellie Andreeva: Lovecraft Country ': Yann Demange To Direct HBO Series From Jordan Peele & JJ Abrams. In: deadline.com, March 5, 2018.
- ↑ HBO's 'Lovecraft Country' to Feature Music by Laura Karpman & Raphael Saadiq. In: filmmusicreporter.com, August 11, 2020.
- ↑ Rainer Zuch: The fascination of cosmic fear A new anthology with horror stories by HP Lovecraft. In: literaturkritik.de. Retrieved June 5, 2017.
- ↑ Gretchen Smail: The HP Lovecraft Easter Egg You May Have Missed In The Lovecraft Country Premiere. In: Bustle. August 17, 2020, accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Björn Becher: "Lovecraft Country": First trailer for the new horror series by the "Get Out" maker and by JJ Abrams. In: filmstarts.de, May 2, 2020.
- ↑ New mini-series "Lovecraft Country". In: sky.de. Sky International AG, July 9, 2020, accessed on August 18, 2020 .
- ↑ https://www.stern.de/kultur/tv/-lovecraft-country----hbos-wilder-mix-aus-rassenhass-und-monsteraction-9380164.html
- ^ Lovecraft Country. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
- ↑ https://diezukunft.de/review/film/lovecraft-country-der-horror-des-rassismus
- ↑ https://www.rnd.de/medien/lovecraft-country-davon-handelt-die-hbo-serie-start-am-17-august-bei-sky-6U3WPNLNQRAZPHMZGGY6RG7JBM.html
- ↑ https://www.zeit.de/kultur/film/2020-08/lovecraft-country-hbo-serie-rassismus
- ↑ https://www.sueddeutsche.de/medien/lovecraft-country-sky-jordan-peele-1.5003052