HBO has unveiled the first official trailer for Lovecraft Country, a new prestige horror series from Jordan Peele, J.J. Abrams, and showrunner Misha Green. It premiered at Comic-Con this weekend, when the cast participated in a virtual panel discussion and shared an exclusive three-minute scene from the show.
Lovecraft Country is based on the 2016 book by Matt Ruff, which sets Lovecraft’s cosmic horrors in the Jim Crow south of the 1950s. The story tracks avid reader Atticus Freeman (Jonathan Majors) as he searches for his missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams) with his childhood pal Letitia (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and his Uncle George (Courtney B. Vance).
The first and second teasers emphasized the relationships between the main characters, while dwelling on the white, human monsters who terrorize Atticus and company. But Lovecraft is remembered for his Eldritch creations, and the new trailer boasts his most famous terror: Cthulu, the Elder God with features that combine an octopus, a dragon, and a twisted human form. The glimpse is brief, but it’s enough to cause instantaneous insanity in any who witness it — unless you’re a real person and not one of Lovecraft’s characters, in which case it’s merely insanely cool.
The show’s Comic-Con panel featured the cast discussing Lovecraft Country‘s relationships and plots, as well as white racism then and now, and the show’s “mature” portrayal of Black love. At the end, HBO revealed a tense scene from the series, in which Atticus, Letitia, and Uncle George find a hidden entrance to underground tunnels. Check out the trailer and panel below.
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Lovecraft Country premieres August 16th on HBO. It’s one of a number of HBO projects from Abrams, including the recently-wrapped Season 3 of Westworld and a new spinoff of The Shining called Overlook. As for Jordan Peele, the brilliant mind behind Get Out is producing a new Candyman movie due out this fall.
