‘Lovecraft Country’ EP on Melding Monsters & Racism for Equally Big Scares (VIDEO)

If you watched last week’s premiere of HBO’s new thriller Lovecraft Country, you know there are many scary things that come after protagonists Letitia “Leti” Lewis (Jurnee Smollett), Atticus “Tic” Freeman (Jonathan Majors) and Atticus’s uncle George (Courtney B. Vance).

As they make their way across 1950s Jim Crow America, the trio, in search of Atticus’s missing father (Michael Kenneth Williams), encounters some very unexpected monsters — the kind that come out of the ground, tower over you and eat people with grand special effects, as well as some expected monsters in the racism they face from many people, including law enforcement, during their journey.

Executive producer Misha Green told TV Insider that she loved being able to play in a bigger field than her previous series, WGN America’s acclaimed Underground, which also dealt with issues of racism, but during the years of the underground railroad. And while the two series look different on the surface, she explains that they may be more closely related than you might originally think. She also talks about the relationship between Leti and Atticus, choosing the look of the monsters, and how she melds the monsters with some social commentary of life then and now.

Watch the interview with the prolific showrunner above.

Lovecraft Country, Sundays, 9/8c, HBO