Lovecraft Country reinvigorates horror and science-fiction tropes

La série où le racisme est plus effrayant qu’un monstre...

Les héros de la série de science-fiction Lovecraft Country, actuellement disponible sur OCS, découvrent, dans l’Amérique rurale des années cinquante, l'existence de phénomènes paranormaux. Leurs aventures les mèneront à affronter des créatures terrifiantes – mais surtout, ils se retrouveront aux prises avec un démon bien pernicieux : tous trois sont noirs américains dans une Amérique profondément ségrégationniste. Et si les humains étaient aussi effrayants que des monstres ?

Ethnic minorities are certainly in the minority when it comes to horror films and television shows. Non-white major characters were rare in the genre until Jordan Peele wrote and directed the Oscar-winning Get Out. Now Mr Peele is one of the executive producers of Lovecraft Country, a landmark ten-part series. It could be a prequel to Get Out, in that it combines horror tropes with America’s history of racism, and has an almost all-black cast.

2. The series is grimly relevant to the current wave of Black Lives Matter protests, but it is also a lavish period drama, complete with the gleaming classic cars and the tailored hep-cat clothes which always decorate television dramas set in the mid-20th century.

3. The reluctant hero is Atticus “Tic” Freeman, a tough but tormented Korean war veteran who goes on a road trip through Massachusetts in 1954 in search of his missing father. His companions are his glamorous, hotheaded friend and potential girlfriend, Leti, a photographer who grew up with him in Chicago, and his kindly uncle George, the publisher of a travel guide to places which are safe for “coloured” people to stay. Such places are few and far between—and if the small-town racists don’t get you in Lovecraft Country, the huge slimy monsters will.

MEN OR MONSTERS?

4. Every episode works as a standalone tale of mystery and suspense. In each one, Ms Green and her co-writers take a familiar horror or science-fiction scenario and examine how it might chime with the experiences of black Americans.

5. In the first episode, for instance, there are fanged, vampire-like fiends who only come out at night. The twist is that these monsters live near a “sundown town” where “coloured” people will be arrested (at the very least) by the sadistic police if they don’t leave by nightfall, so the setting sun signifies two different but equally dangerous threats. And in another, entitled “Strange Case”, a character drinks a potion which transforms them, Jekyll-and-Hyde-style, from black to white.

6. When Mr Peele was asked last year about casting a white leading man in one of his films, he replied that it was unlikely. “Not that I don’t like white dudes,” he added, “but I’ve seen that movie.” Lovecraft Country exemplifies his point. Audiences will have seen the supernatural elements before, but the racial aspect refreshes them, enhancing their potency and deepening their meaning, at the same time as educating viewers about the many manifestations of American bigotry.

OLa série Lovecraft Country revisite les codes des films d'horreur et de science-fiction