TV review: Lovecraft Country
After last year's excellent Watchmen, HBO has created another genre series that manages to mix the extraordinary with very real world situations.
Executive produced by Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams, Lovecraft Country is named after horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, who also held a number of outright racist beliefs.
Showrunner Misha Green has assembled a strong cast led by Jonathan Majors as Atticus Freeman and Jurnee Smollett as Letitia Lewis - childhood friends and science fiction nerds, venturing on a road trip through the Midwest and Massachusetts in the hope of finding his father.
They are initially joined by Courtney B. Vance as Atticus' Uncle George.
But while they encounter monsters and the occult, they also face real-world demons America is still battling.
Being black during the Jim Crow era of the 1950s - and not just in the South - creates situations far scarier than the gore fest caused by vampire molemen, especially when a moment of quiet in a diner turns into a desperate escape from armed racists.
The bold mix of horror styles in an episodic format makes this a trip you will want to tag along for.
SCORE: 4/5
HBO GO and HBO (StarHub TV Ch 601/Singtel TV Ch 420), Mondays 9am and 10pm
Get The New Paper on your phone with the free TNP app. Download from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store now
