HBO

‘Lovecraft Country’ is just weeks away from its debut, and to help hype it, HBO has released a new motion poster, featuring stars Jonathan Majors (as Atticus Black) and Jurnee Smollett (as Letitia Dandridge), surrounded by some very Lovecraftian tentacles.

Set in 1950s Jim Crow America, ‘Lovecraft Country’, based on Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel of the same name, explores racism with a horror spin.  Atticus, a Korean War veteran, and science-fiction-obsessed reader, is traveling through the South, with his uncle, George Freeman (Courtney B. Vance), and his friend, singer and activist Letitia “Leti” Lewis, searching for his father, Montrose (Michael K. Williams).  In addition to dealing with corrupt police brutality, the traveling trio find themselves encountering Lovecraftian monsters.

As Williams told EW:

 “Even before coronavirus and the murder of George Floyd, when I read the scripts last year I was like, ‘This is America right now.’ That was crystal clear.”

Vance added:

“The hangings, the beatings, the killings — it’s the same thing that was happening back then.  I really wanted to be a part of something that was as important as delineating for people what it was [like] for us when we had to actually [travel] ourselves and figure out where we could stay, and then publish a book.… It is so sad that in this day and age we’re still dealing with the same issues.”

Smollett says she avoided the horror genre because of the tendency to kill off Black characters first.

“It’s this radical imagining of our story. It’s centering Black voices in a genre where we’re rarely seen being centered.  The story is so ancestral. Our heroes are going on an adventure, essentially to bring down white supremacy, and yet there’s magic involved and all these supernatural elements, and it was just so incredibly ambitious and exciting.”

Check out the new promo poster below:

Jordan Peele and J.J. Abrams are among the executive producers.

Check out ‘Lovecraft Country’ when it debuts on HBO on Sunday, August 16, at 9pm EST.  It will also be available on HBO Max.  Also check back for updates as they become available.