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When I first began cutting my teeth on horror fiction lo those many years ago, one of the first names I bumped into was H.P. Lovecraft. My introduction to the author who famously plied his word-craft into eerie gems such as The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow Over Innsmouth and The Dunwich Horror came not through these and his other masterpieces of the macabre – that was a pleasure I did not experience until in my twenties – but instead through the almost reverential referencing of the maestro by other scribes I respected and admired like Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. I knew if these purveyors of the supernatural were left in awe of Lovecraft’s turn of a creepy phrase, then I in turn would be mere putting in the spectral hands of this long since departed writer. On the silver screen, Lovecraft’s dark poetry and keen reckoning of the underside of humanity and reality has been a tough nut to crack; like Bradbury, much is lost in translation between written page and live action adaptation. To date, several dozen big screen examples exist of this Providence, Rhode Island native’s literary output, all varying from good (Re-Animator) to downright oddball (Witch Hunt).
HBO’s ongoing series Lovecraft Country is – much like the late, lamented Stephen King inspired series Castle Rock – meant to evoke the mood and style of H.P. Lovecraft’s seminal works more so than stand as any type of faithful adaptation to any of the author’s specific works. And to that end, it succeeded, at least for this pop culture pundit: Set in the America of the 1950s, the series followed a young African American man trekking across a segregated nation in search of his missing father. Along the way, our hero discovers some unsettling secrets in a small town on which Lovecraft based the area of many of his celebrated stories. Rightly praised by critics, Lovecraft Country is a series that had trouble finding its target audience. Sadly, according to our pals over at The Hollywood Reporter, that salient sticking point has led to the cancelation of the series by HBO after just one season.
“We will not be moving forward with a second season of Lovecraft Country,” HBO announced in a press release over the weekend. “We are grateful for the dedication and artistry of the gifted cast and crew, and to Misha Green, who crafted this groundbreaking series. And to the fans, thank you for joining us on this journey.”
H.P. Lovecraft, as pointed out a couple of paragraphs back, is a tough nut to crack, adaptation-wise. Misha Green and her band of gremlins from Lovecraft Country caught the tone of the maestro at least, while also commenting on some pretty heady stuff in the process. Methinks that Lovecraft would be proud of the effort made in one evocative season of this HBO series.
