Unless you have lived under a stone for the past 20 years, the name of J.J. Abrams will surely ring a bell for you: we are talking about a man who helped revolutionize serial television narration with the masterpiece series Lost (2004-2010), the one who opened a dialogue on new forms of sci-fi themed cinema and technonostalgic culture with successful films such as Super 8 (2011) and Cloverfield (2008), while giving new life to immortal franchises such as Star Trek and Star Wars.
To him we add a more recent genius, but perhaps less known, that is Jordan Peele and his incredible and unexpected contribution to horror and fantastic cinema (the director in question was born as a successful comedian) thanks to horror of incredible quality and enormous cultural impact such as Get Out - Scappa (2017), as well as to a wise union between genre cinema, African American culture and social criticism. So, what do you expect to get from a collaboration between these two pop culture giants for a postmodern, pulpy Lovecraftian horror series? Incredibly, a disappointment.
The couple that breaks out
Monkeypaw Productions (Jordan Peele's production company), Bad Robot Productions (Abrams') and Warner Bros Television collaborate and bring to the small screen for the HBO a successful book adaptation Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff, a small but intriguing book by an equally interesting author that combines the mythology of HP Lovecraft with the racial adversities of America in the 50s. A marriage in an interesting perspective starting from two reasons: first of all the nature of the story, which seems to have been born only to be adapted by two directors with such specific and precise tastes (Abrams' science fiction and Peele's African-American horror) while, secondly, the claim of an author as unfortunately racist as Lovecraft to talk about Jim Crow laws (aimed at maintaining racial segregation in the USA, in force in some states until 1964). So where is the problem for a series so apparently destined for success?
It is easy to say, Lovecraft Country would seem to faithfully maintain the pastiche structure between horror, fantasy, social criticism and black humor that distinguishes the original novel and the style of its author, but the result is actually a mess without rhyme or reason, undecided on the focus of the story, banal as regards the style and questionable in the choices of unfolding the narrative: sometimes a serial film, sometimes an anthological series according to the whim of the screenwriters, stained here and there by elements of African American culture inserted in the story in a decidedly out of tune. For good weight they are also noted even some annoying winks at politically correct. So, in the end, the series demands incredible patience from the viewer as it mixes everyone together and at the same time affectionate references to pulp magazines, celebrations of American black culture, critique of the systematic racism of the USA, poorly presented and worse evolved characters, as well as sporadic citations. to Lovecraftian mythology.
In short, Lovecraft Country is, in a word, unclassifiable: it's not a traditional series, but it's not an anthology or a TV movie either. It's not completely horror, but neither is it a black comedy or racism metaphor and the list goes on and on. Not being pigeonholed would not necessarily be a problem (indeed, for more than one film or series it was a winning quality) were it not for the fact that the work is so indecisive as to become frustrating in a very short time, as well as being boring in the her best moments and presumptuous at her worst. A chance wasted by the indisputable talents sitting at the production table who seemed destined instead to elevate a small niche novel in one of the horror series of the year.
