THR investigates the monsters and horrors at the heart of LovecraftCountry's debut
is her ability to follow a train of thought that connects seemingly disparate horrors of racial injustice and fiction. In terms of horror references, the first episode moves from, to Shoggoths – shapeless, protoplasmic creatures from Lovecraft's mythos, to vampires and Dracula.
And they're all connected through this idea that it's unsafe for Black people to be away from their homes after dark. The Shoggoths, given their versatile form, become something of a meta-fictional means to break down the physical barriers between the Outsider and Dracula, giving way toOver the years, literary scholars have looked atas a metaphor for a fear of colonization and interracial relationships."But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one. Men know him not, and to know not is to care not for," Count Dracula says in the second chapter of Stoker's novel. Dracula is the ultimate outsider, far more of a sad romantic figure than the villain that adaptations have cornered him into. Looked at in the context of Blackness in America, it's easy to see how the European concerns of Stoker's novel can travel overseas and become the American fears of white flight and miscegenation. George's recitation of Dracula's famous line feels like more than lip service, and it's operating on two levels. On one, George is directly reacting to the moment, referencing the hungry creatures outside the cabin. But, there is also a reading of that line that posits Black people are seen as vampires by whites. There is a sadness and a horror to this, the fact that Blacks are seen as a drain and infestation on a country they built. But, much like Dracula himself, there is also a beauty in the nature of the vampire. What was the block party on the South Side of Chicago at the beginning of the episode if not a celebration of the children of the night?before the premiere of"Sundown, elaborated on the significance ofin the episode."There's a vampire thing in the back of my head always," she said, noting that Bram Stoker'sis one of her personal favorite works. "As a genre fan I can't help but think how could I do that? How could it be fresh? And I also think with Dracula, that's where the idea of the vampire became mainstream. People don't think twice about that word anymore." This idea of asking viewers to"think twice" about familiar horror elements, to reintegrate them into the Black experience, is something to consider ascontinues and more Easter eggs from horror literature and movies crop up. The use of tropes and allusions inis purposeful, and while some may seem familiar, Green is challenging the viewer to make them unfamiliar again, reconsider their origins and meanings, and to find the horror and beauty that exists within these stories of outsiders.
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