lovecraft

06 Sep

Lovecraft Country Episode 4 Review: A History of Violence

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This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers. The episode is available to stream now on all HBO platforms. Lovecraft Country Episode 4 Christina pulls into the Northside in her silver Bentley, unscathed, backdropped by Rihanna’s “Bitch Better Have My Money”, perfectly capturing her vibe of wealth and privilege and lack of fucks to give. A mood. Neither the destruction of Ardham Lodge or Tic’s ill-advised murder attempt have slowed her down, and she’s up to her usual cryptic nonsense. She’s looking for Hiram’s orrery, apparently the key to his time machine—because why not?— and has upset the local wizard wannabe, Captain…

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01 Sep

Surprise! Lovecraft Country Is Indeed an Anthology

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The following contains spoilers for Lovecraft Country. The ending of Lovecraft Country’s second episode could have very well been the season finale, if not series finale, of many other shows. All in the span of two episodes’ time, our heroes Tic Freeman (Jonathan Majors), Leti Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), and George Freeman (Courtney B. Vance) meet their proverbial archvillians, learn of their plan, and ultimately dispatch them. Tic even reaches a series finale level of catharsis by meeting the shade of his ancestor, Hannah, who assists him in defeating Samuel Braithwhite (Tony Goldwyn) and helps him find safe passage out of…

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31 Aug

Lovecraft Country Episode 3 Review: Holy Ghost

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This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers. Lovecraft Country Episode 3 Leti sits in church, and stares into nothing, as the congregation worships exuberantly around her. “Which angels gave you their wings? Which skies have you flown? And when you reached the heavens, who was there to catch you when you fell?” The spoken-word poem, performed by Precious Ebony for Nike’s #betrue campaign provides an evocative soundtrack to the dissonant scene. Last week’s installment, “Whitey’s On The Moon,” was such an enormous episode, it’s hard to believe that it’s just the second installment of the season. The amount of information it…

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27 Aug

How Lovecraft Country Uses Horror to Tell Black Stories

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In Lovecraft Country, Atticus “Tic” Freeman is a Korean war vet, who went to war to escape the physical abuse he received at the hands of his father. But before that, he escaped into the imagined worlds of Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P. Lovecraft, and countless others. Reading stories wasn’t just something he did to pass the time; reading stories was survival. Commercial books, film, and television, what we call popular culture, are gateways to the world outside of the small spaces we each occupy. We connect to each other across the globe through shared experiences in the media we consume.…

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24 Aug

Lovecraft Country Episode 2 Review: Whitey’s On The Moon

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This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers. Lovecraft Country Episode 2 The Jeffersons theme song plays. Uncle George and Leti blithely explore the luxurious suites in the opulent lodge they were inexplicably welcomed into, despite landing at the door bloody and disheveled. George, comfortably clothed in a robe and slippers, delights in the shelves upon shelves of his favorite books. Leti dances airily around the room as she tries on the beautiful garments that fill the wardrobes, all of which just so happen to fit her like a glove. Tic meanwhile, sits solemnly in his suite, replaying the events of last…

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18 Aug

Lovecraft Country Episode 1 Review: Sundown

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This Lovecraft Country review contains spoilers. Lovecraft Country Season 1, Episode 1 We’re introduced to Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) in a dream sequence. What begins as a straightforward black and white scene of Tic in the trenches morphs into a colorful panorama of the fantastical, a smorgasbord of sci-fi hors d’oeuvres. Overhead, flying saucers hover, while creatures of unknown origin fly about the sky. A red woman (Jamie Chung) descends from a spaceship, and alerts our hero to the imminent threat of a rising Cthulhu. Before the Elder God can raise hell, Jackie Robinson smashes it to shit with…

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17 Aug

Link Tank: How the Horrors in Lovecraft Country Are Bigger Than the Supernatural

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Lovecraft Country showrunner Misha Green dives into how the show’s horrors go beyond the supernatural. “Like all horror that wants to leave you feeling unsettled and disturbed long after you’ve finished watching it, Lovecraft Country’s first episode is careful to take its time and make you wait almost until the very end for the series’ supernatural monstrosities to make themselves known.” Read more at Gizmodo. Denise Bryson was a transgender woman from the ’90s hit TV show Twin Peaks. Here are the ways her character was (and wasn’t) ahead of her time. “While there’s a veritable infinity of ways you…

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11 Aug

Lovecraft Country Review (Spoiler-Free)

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Imagine yourself and some friends traveling on a road miles outside of a major city, passing fields of green, the car cutting a line between the blue sky and the gray asphalt. There are few other cars around and you are some distance away from the nearest town that you’re sure is a safe place to rest. The sun is slowly descending on the horizon, and the trees that lined the road are suddenly looming and ominous. Now a monster has caught your scent. You speed down the road, careful not to spook your pursuer, and just barely make it…

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01 Jul

Lovecraft Country: HBO Series Gets Release Date

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Lovecraft Country is an intriguing TV project from Jordan Peele’s Monkeypaw Productions, which teams with J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot and Misha Green, the creator of Underground, to adapt Matt Ruff’s novel of the same name for HBO. The project, which was ordered to series, is also produced being by Warner Bros TV. The pilot will be written by Green, who serves as showrunner.  The 10-episode series will take place in 1950s Jim Crow America and follow Atticus Freeman as he travels across the country to find his missing father. On the way he must overcome Lovecraftian beasts along with the…

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