LOVECRAFT COUNTRY.

• Author: Shackford, Scott
• Position: TV - Television program review

H.P. Lovecraft's footprint on modern horror storytelling is inescapable. Even those who have never read his short stories of people driven to madness by the eldritch abominations looming in the darkness recognize the profile of his monstrous, tentacled god Cthulhu.

Also inescapable is that Lovecraft's fiction was influenced by his deep-seated racism and xenophobia. While the author's pervasive influence on the horror genre means he can't be "canceled" entirely--nor should he be--his image was removed from the World Fantasy Award in 2015 following protests.

But the mythos Lovecraft created has outlasted the man himself, and new creators can expand on his ideas with fresh eyes. In the case of HBO's Lovecraft Country, based on a book by Matt Ruff, they completely reframe Lovecraft's racial dynamics.

Lovecraft Country shifts...