Lovecraft Country: The Complete First Season Blu-ray Review & Comments

[Casimir Harlow]

Following suit from their excellent Watchmen follow-up, HBO's Lovecraft Country effortlessly blends Lovecraftian horror fantasy with arguably even more terrifying hate and race-crimes still shockingly as relevant as ever.
Read the review.

Write your own review for Lovecraft Country: The Complete First Season

 

[Panavision]

The first episode was good, but then it was a slow fall off the cliff. It didn't make any sense to me, so I switched off after episode five.

 

[Nexus43]

Fantastic. Agreed, Unmissable.

 

[LotusElan]

I watched this when it first appeared on NowTV and gamely clung on until the end. Other than the first couple of episodes I'm not sure that I "enjoyed" it but there was enough there for me to carry on to see where it was going.

I also struggled with what (e.g.) Jonathan Majors was saying at times - this might have been down to my aged lugholes/brain trying to interpret the accent or it may be that the NowTV soundtrack was a tad muffled. To qualify that statement I've also struggled with accents in City On A Hill (Jonathan Tucker especially) and The Wire (pretty much the entire cast ) so probably a case of "It's not you, it's me...".

Jurnee Smollett (with two Ls) was great though.

 

[Stinger69]

I watched this when it first appeared on NowTV and gamely clung on until the end. Other than the first couple of episodes I'm not sure that I "enjoyed" it but there was enough there for me to carry on to see where it was going.

I also struggled with what (e.g.) Jonathan Majors was saying at times - this might have been down to my aged lugholes/brain trying to interpret the accent or it may be that the NowTV soundtrack was a tad muffled. To qualify that statement I've also struggled with accents in City On A Hill (Jonathan Tucker especially) and The Wire (pretty much the entire cast ) so probably a case of "It's not you, it's me...".

Jurnee Smollett (with two Ls) was great though.

Got to agree with you there, I appreciate that I'm sounding more and more like my dad when I say this, but damn they do mumble a lot in this series! Trouble is, in order to hear the dialogue we have to crank up the receiver to about -7db. This means that come the adverts a cataclysmic wall of sound is unleashed, leading to a frantic lunging for the remote!

Andy

 

[Tomurai]

The first episode was good, but then it was a slow fall off the cliff. It didn't make any sense to me, so I switched off after episode five.

Same here. Don't understand the praise that it got. It looked so cheap from episode 2 forward...

 

[MikeTVMikeTV]

The very first episode was really good, but it quickly went downhill fast, we watched 2 more and then binned it off.

 

[Evinger]

Thanks for the Review, Cas. I seem to remember a similar amount of "really liked it" versus "stopped watching after two episodes" when the broadcast version was reviewed. Will pop it on my disk rental list; that way, if I don't enjoy it, it is just EUr 3 gone, not more.

 

[Panavision]

Same here. Don't understand the praise that it got. It looked so cheap from episode 2 forward...

I didn't get the mythology. It wasn't clear what was going on and why.

In X-Files it was the monster of the week and the personal story of Mulder searching for his abducted sister. I still remember that, and that was 28 years ago!

I'm struggling to come with a sentence about Lovecraft County's premise.

 

[keithwiggins]

The first episode was good, but then it was a slow fall off the cliff. It didn't make any sense to me, so I switched off after episode five.

Watched it all, some of it was frankly torturous some of it worth the effort, but should entertainment require such effort?

 

[Panavision]

Watched it all, some of it was frankly torturous some of it worth the effort, but should entertainment require such effort?

Stories should be easy to understand on first viewing or reading. You certainly shouldn't be confused or require herculean effort to understand what's going on.

 

[LotusElan]

Stories should be easy to understand on first viewing or reading. You certainly shouldn't be confused or require herculean effort to understand what's going on.

Generally yes, but I don't think that viewer confusion is necessarily an indicator of a poor writing, bad direction or whatever element it is that makes something a little "oblique". For example 2001 confused me the first time I watched it and I had no idea what the hell was going on. However what it did do was to intrigue me enough to go and read the book, and then on subsequent viewings I sort of understood it. Sort of.

However in the case of Lovecraft Country you're absolutely spot on!

 

[Panavision]

Generally yes, but I don't think that viewer confusion is necessarily an indicator of a poor writing, bad direction or whatever element it is that makes something a little "oblique". For example 2001 confused me the first time I watched it and I had no idea what the hell was going on. However what it did do was to intrigue me enough to go and read the book, and then on subsequent viewings I sort of understood it. Sort of.

However in the case of Lovecraft Country you're absolutely spot on!

2001 is easy to understand in terms of what is happening in the story.

What it is about AKA theme requires a few viewings to fully appreciate as you calculate visuals, characterisation, dialogue, etc with every viewing.

 

[Tom Davies]

Stories should be easy to understand on first viewing or reading. You certainly shouldn't be confused or require herculean effort to understand what's going on.

 

[Elephant Man]

I enjoyed it, it was different, the music was fantastic. That poor chap that got FINISHED with the high heel. lol ............