Lovecraft Country Series Premiere Available for Free on YouTube

Audiences are always on the lookout for the TV series that will become the next pop-culture sensation, with HBO premiering their adaptation of Lovecraft Country earlier this week, but for those fans who may have cancelled their subscriptions following the conclusions of Game of Thrones or Watchmen, the network made the premiere episode of the series available for free on YouTube. In case anyone was apprehensive about subscribing to the service just to check out the new series’ compelling blend of horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and historical drama, here’s your chance to get a taste of what you’re in store for. Check out the series premiere above and catch new episodes of Lovecraft Country Sunday nights on HBO.

Lovecraft Country follows 25-year-old Koren war vet Atticus Black (Da 5 Bloods‘ Jonathan Majors), who joins up with his friend Letitia “Leti” Dandridge (Birds of Prey‘s Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and his Uncle George (The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story‘s Courtney B. Vance) to embark on a road trip to find his missing father. Atticus, known for always having a pulp novel in his back pocket, wears his heart on his sleeve despite the daily injustice of living in 1950s Jim Crow America. The trio must survive and overcome both the racist terrors of white America and the malevolent spirits that could be ripped from a Lovecraft paperback.

While the series is based on Matt Ruff’s 2016 novel of the same name, the mythology doesn’t have nearly the same familiarity with audiences as some of HBO’s more recent successes, though the premiere episode nearly earned the same number of viewers with its premiere as Damon Lindelof’s Watchmen premiere. Lovecraft Country earned a reported 760,000, while Watchmen earned 800,000 viewers. When including HBO Max, Lovecraft Country earned 1.4 million viewers vs. Watchmen‘s 1.5 million.

Making the series’ accomplishments even more impressive is how much it embraces the world of horror, with showrunner Micha Green previously noting that fans can expect references to iconic horror projects in the future.

“Everything in the genre space is a huge influence and genre fans will definitely see those Easter eggs and influences throughout,” Green shared during a virtual TCA event. Of those references, both The Shining and the Amityville Horror franchise were specified, while also noting, “Later you’ll see we use Nightmare on Elm Street and Freddy Krueger to tell what it’s like to be a young Black girl in America.”

Tune in to new episodes of Lovecraft Country on Sunday nights on HBO.

Are you enjoying the series? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!