I love HP Lovecraft , with him the horror genre would not be what it is today. We can not say the same for writer Matt Ruff. "Lovecraft Country" was his stab at horror. Normally he is a left of center urband fantasy author who is mediocre at best "Lovecraft Country " found him trying to work through his conflict in loving HP Lovecraft. Quality wise it was like "50 Shades of Gray" was to ' Twilight", the idea was there the excution was off. "50 Shades of Gray" is sadly a better book than "Lovecraft Country". I went into the show with low expectations . Jordan Peele's name had been attached to it and fortunatly he was only the producer. It is more watchable than any of the garbage Peele has put out. I expected more from director Yann Demange as he also directed 'Dead Set". Instead when the horror elements came in at the end it felt like a bad rip off of Sam Rami.
Good news first ...the best part of the show was Jurnee Smollett. She is way hotter than she was in "Birds of Prey". She was the only actor in this show not made out of card board or playing off a tired stereotype. The point they were trying to make on the show was better made on the most recent season of "Umbrella Accademy". I think even when trying to capture the feel of the time period it was ruined by stupid mistakes like breaking the mood with hip hop. Jazz would have made more sense. Writer Misha Green read the Ruff book in order to adapt it , but it feels like she never got around to reading any actual Lovecraft or maybe she would have known the basics like ...there are no vampires in his stories! Not showing the monster and letting imagination to the work is scarier. After all if the CGI budget was just big enough to make the monsters look like something from the 2004 Van Helsing film, then what you did now show us wwould have been better than what you showed us. I did like the monster that attacked them with all the eyes, but only when they did not show it full on.
This episode was a let down and the bar could not have been raised any lower. The moral to all horror should be ...abandon all hope, life is futile, you will die. Lovecraft carried this message with a dose of you will be driven mad by the unseen evil. Instead we get a veiled history lesson that we have already have had Hollywood sense us hundreds of times, thankfully not in horror until now. Horror is loosely termed as nothing was actually scary in this episode. I might give it one more episode to see if it either gets better or Smollet gets naked. I have low expectations for either happening.
