Netflix’s new Locke & Key begins with a clear message: Escape is not an option. Based on the comic book series by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke & Key tells the story of the Locke family, who recently lost their patriarch in an act of gun violence. The trauma of that event sends a mother and her three children from their Seattle home to Keyhouse, their ancestral home in Maine. The Locke children—Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), Tyler (Connor Jessup), and Kinsey (Emilia Jones)—carry a unique heritage that comes with a distinct inheritance: Magical keys forged centuries ago that allow adolescents and those who believe to perform wonders. The head key creates a physical manifestation of the inside of someone’s head: their thoughts, feelings, and memories laid bare.
The keys, all beautifully rendered, capture the haunted house vibe from the source material more than the original design of Keyhouse, but the layout of this grand old home is still significant. The doors that seemingly lead nowhere and kitchen the size of a football stadium amplify the creepiness factor, while the long green halls and oil paintings of great-grandfathers are fearsome in their own way. A walled-off den ups the weird factor of the house, which was vacated in the ’90s by surviving family members. But while the setting has been redesigned somewhat, lovers of the original comic book series should be pleased with this adaptation from Carlton Cuse, Aron Eli Coleite, and Meredith Averill. Though it does not follow the exact pacing of events, this interpretation remains very faithful to the overall text, and stretching certain memories and wrapping others up quickly allow for bits of suspense for longtime fans.
Most fantasy genre productions live or die by their visual effects—witness the animated dead eyes of America’s beloved Tom Hanks in Polar Express. But the visual effects used to create flight, ghosts, and a rad M.C. Escher-style mall in Locke & Key cast dizzying magic. The way the show visualizes some of the more abstract ideas from the comic book is equally as striking. Rather than shrink characters down in size, Locke & Key uses a combination of clever staging, doors that appear from nowhere, and oversized props to make the inside of someone’s mind just as expansive as the house the Locke family inhabits. There are also joyful little touches, like memories rendered as jars of candy displaying videos, which make the show accessible even to younger viewers.
This is one horror fantasy inclusive of all ages, grappling with the dark, developmental struggles of addiction as well as the isolation that comes from a group of people protecting a child. In particular, Bode, who’s about 6 in the books but looks about 8 in the show, carries lot of emotional baggage. Jackson Robert Scott has quickly made a career in horror as the wise but innocent little brother—having played Georgie Denbrough in Andy Muschietti’s It and a young Troy Otto in Fear The Walking Dead—and he deftly teeters between annoying younger brother and a child growing into their identity.
Casting director April Webster has put together the perfect ensemble to portray the Locke family. As the terrified and angsty Kinsey, Emilia Jones embodies the passive-aggressive middle sibling, as her alternative-girl pink hair strip arrives a few episodes in to set off the transition from sulky teen to in-your-face punk. Connor Jessup’s Tyler charms and avoids as he struggles to quietly scale a mountain of regret.
Looking after your children after they’ve witnessed the murder of their father would be a monumental task for any parent, let alone one who’s seven years sober; every outsize emotion, low grade, and change in behavior threatens to send Nina Locke back to her demons. Darby Stanchfield gives a haunting performance as the Locke matriarch, showing fragility in the tender way she washes a mug and how she frays when dismissed as incapable by her daughter. The entire family suffers from PTSD, and their symptoms create the landscape upon which the story is built. The keys literally unlock the path to recovery or further destruction: At one point, the elder children disagree on the ending of one of their father’s original bedtime stories, so they use the head key and watch a playback of their tuck-ins. Eventually, they learn that he told them each a different ending.
Mystery and misdirection drive this story, where good guys and bad guys change quickly as motives are revealed. Fans should be particularly pleased with Laysla de Oliveira’s performance as antagonist Dodge. Sexy, calculating, intimidating, and hungry, Dodge is the stuff of nightmares. She’s clever and could be anywhere at any time; this proves to be a deadly combination, particularly for the ignorant. De Oliveira’s cutting portrayal brings both comedy and horror to a series that overall could use a few more laughs to balance the woes facing the main cast.
The cinematography steers a lot of the mystery; everyday objects are captured with a halo effect, like the glowing lights that surround Christmas merchandise in an ad. As Nina strolls the aisles of a hardware store, a hammer appears in the foreground of the frame, hanging from a shelf. That hazy spotlight sends the viewer back in time to the worst day of Nina’s life, when she was forced to use a similar instrument to protect her family. The pendulum swings between light and dark, mimicking the highs and lows of growth, recovery, and development facing each member of the family. The show never allows itself to be bogged down in dreariness; instead, discovery becomes the ultimate high. The kids become explorers of their domicile, of their neighborhood, and of their familial history. In doing so, they untangle the lies and pain of the past and forge new paths for themselves.
There’s a lot to enjoy in Netflix’s Locke & Key: A solid cast that includes the teens who lend authentic life to this fantasy mystery, and a gorgeous score and fun soundtrack make for a fun and whimsical soundscape. The writing explores recovery in an accessible way, and a diverse cast helps create an inviting new world. This combination of fantasy and horror provides opportunities not just for scares and imagination, but for astute reflections of society: that self-imposed burdens can leave everyone bowed. Locke & Key weaves a silver lining into an otherwise foreboding tapestry.
74 Comments
We’ve now done Umbrella Academy, The Walking Dead, Happy!, Locke and Key, The Boys, Watchmen, Preacher, and Lucifer.
Y the Last Man is stuck in development hell at FX.
Sandman in development at Netflix.
East of West owned, supposedly in development at Amazon
Lazarus owned, supposedly in development at Amazon.
Fell owned, not in active development at CBS (if memory serves).
Southern Bastards owned, if memory serves, by FX.
Invincible, owned by FX I thinkWhich other indie (ish) comics would you like to see adapted to prestige TV? I’d like to see some Warren Ellis, preferably Injection, Transmetropolitan, or Planetary. I’d also happily take a Desolation Jones show since the comic is never coming back.
DMZ recently got a pilot order for HBO Max.Desolation Jones’ world would definitely make for an excellent prestige noir with procedural elements.
Starring Matt Smith as Jones.
Invincible is Amazon FYI.An actual good adaptation of Powers? Scarlet or United States of Murder, Inc. would be cool too.
Any of the Brubaker/Phillips work would be rad (especially Criminal or The Fade Out).Manhattan Projects, Nailbiter, Copra, a better version of From Hell or League, Head Lopper, anything by Tom Scioli, an animated Hip-Hop Family Tree, Deadly Class and Happy getting renewed elsewhere, one of Jeff Lemire’s many adaptable properties, Beasts of Burden would be rad…uhhh…Harrow County…tons of other shit.Out of any of these a Criminal flick or a Nailbiter show would be the easiest, I think. Nailbiter’s absurd premise could make for easy episodic stories.
Thanks for the head’s up. I figured I got some of those wrong.
I do love Head Lopper, Beasts of Burden, Criminal and Harrow County. Scarlet I loved at first, but the last couple of volumes at DC felt a little more scattershot. Maleev’s art is always the best. And I really need to get my hands on Copra or anything by Scioli.
I think Planetary could be very interesting to adaptMaybe Candice Patton as Jakita and Tom Cavanagh as Snow
Thanks to the art references, I see Snow as Bruce Willis. But with a giant budget (like a Mandalorian budget) Planetary would be awesome. The closest thing on TV is probably the Venture Bros. which has some of the same ideas through the lens of cynical comedy.
We3 miniseries (or ongoing if they can figure it out)The InvisiblesYoung LiarsAn actual Fables seriesManhattan Projects American FlaggNexus
I’d kill for Manhattan Projects to just come back and finish. It’s rougher than Hickman’s more recent output but goddamn is it a lot of fun.Also, WE3 would make a great 20 minute short film for the next season of Love, Death, and Robots.
I think 20 minutes would be too short. You could do it, but I think you could get at least 1.5 hours out of it.Thinking about ways of doing it in 20 minutes, I am thinking it would be essentially silent and animated.
I’d second Fables – I was really hoping that was what Once Upon A Time would be, and it was so disappointing, I’m not sure if I made it as far as season 2.
I read very few comics so my opinion isn’t worth much, but a Wicked + Divine adaptation could be pretty cool if they could figure out how to handle the musical elements.
Would Transmetropolitan cast Johnny Depp as Hunter S Thompson playing Spider Jerusalem?
Please No….Just No. I don’t really have a strong opinion on his continued problems with Amber Heard, but Depp doesn’t own the idea of Hunter S. Thompson (yes, I know he spent time with HST to get down his mannerisms…and probably also for the promise of fun/drugs). His performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is part of the film’s appeal, but I would say Terry Gilliam’s hallucinatory direction/production design can’t be dismissed.And really, do you want such an on-the-nose portrayal of Spider Jerusalem? He (and the comic he inhabits) are so, so much more than thinly-veiled HST homage. Of course, I’m not sure any streaming service or network could afford the price tag on Depp. And it’s anybody’s guess whether it’s serious-actor Depp or loopy-conceptual-performance Depp shows up on the set.
I’d expect someone to be trying to see what they could do with Saga, given its popularity, but it seems tricky to adapt. Not as tricky as Sandman, mind you, but would definitely be effects-heavy. I know I’d heard there was some weird behind the scenes stuff with the comic, but I think the basic premise of Rat Queens would make a really fun tv show. It could have a “quest of the week” kind of setup.
I enjoyed Chew pretty well.
They’ve done Stumptown as a procedural too (it’s not bad, I’m enjoying it, though I didn’t know it was based on a comic until after I started watching it—Cobie Smulders is what drew me. I will say they genderswapped a character for romantic tension purposes, but the didn’t need to as Dex is pretty clearly bi, and so far every same sex love interest for her has been real bad news and I don’t love that, but it’s got legs). I wanna see Riceboy given a live action treatment some how, that and/or SAGA.
I know they’re working on it for film, but I honestly feel like Ex Machina is a story that would be better served by a television format.
Also, I keep going back and forth on The Wicked + The Divine. It’s got a lot of potential, but I can’t help but see the ways it could go incredibly awry and so I stop myself from wanting to suggest it.
FABLES I NEED MY FABLES
I want Invicible to be good so badly.The massive scale of the fights are perfect for an animated adaption.
100 Bullets seems pretty doable
Transmet seems like it would be considered commentary in the Trump era.
I’d say Saga could be an excellent series, if the budget is big enough. Legion showed that you can do flashy on a relatively modest budget.Also, I’d buy Crossed and Uber if they could keep them as gritty as the source material.
I would love to see 100 Bullets. That comics screams Prestige TV.
I think Die would be another good one.
Scalped
Cadillacs and Dinosaurs.
IIRC, the books started off lighter and then got really dark, so I wouldn’t expect it to stay younger-audiences-friendly unless they really changed some things. Or, was there some indication that it’s aiming for a wider audience?
i’ve read multiple comparisons to riverdale and sabrina, which i find as a big stayaway. i don’t really want to watch CW quality teen drama shows.
I never put too much stock in those sorts of descriptions, because they’re often based on really shallow elements, and are primarily about evoking something popular for marketing purposes. Like, a while back every YA book that was in any way dystopian was “the hunger games meets X”, even though it wasn’t like either in tone or style.
After a tortuous 20 minutes I can confirm, very CW. And I want to throw the kids down a well
As someone who has just watched both (Chilling) Sabrina and this, let me assure you they are radically different. This is more like a cross between Stranger Things and Lisey’s Story: a haunting family grief-and-dark-history story that just happens to be set against the backdrop of magical keys and with underage main characters. There’s also a faint air of Once Upon A Time Season 1, and what Season 2 might have been had it focused more on the impact of magic on the characters, rather than vice versa. Sabrina is popcorn. Gross American style popcorn in that for some bizarre reason it has butter on it rather than the natural nothing. This is carvery.
I dunno, the very first volume has multiple people shot in the head, strongly implies that the mom was raped by the murderers, and IIRC that’s also the one where the hitchhiking murderer sucks a trucker’s dick. I still haven’t gotten through the whole run, but in the early going Hill lays on the sordid shit with a trowel. He’s a chip off the old block.
It’s been a while since I read it – I guess I just remember that in the beginning the dark stuff is balanced by the kids discovering powers, and some lighter stuff mixed in, whereas nearer to the end the balance tips darker overall? But, I haven’t read them since they originally came out, so fuzzy on details (which might make watching the show more fun?)
One defining difference between Hill and his dad, to me, is how sentimental the story ended up being. He made his characters go through some dark shit, but family wins out in the end, and the last book is just me fighting back tears.I recall there was a King book that had its ending changed to be less cynical after Hill’s advice.
That would be 11/22/63. The published ending is Joe Hill’s, not Stephen King’s. (The original ending is on King’s website.)Hill has infinitely been better at endings, from what I’ve read, without being saccharine.
Nothing of the kind happens in this. The worst (as in most graphic) thing that happens is a tie between the inciting incident of the fatal shooting, which by the time the show starts has already happened, and the guy who stabs himself in the chest with a key and causes his house to blow up, which is plot-relevant and a more responsible version of the Uris suicide.
Netflix rates it TV-14 so probably not too bad but also Netflix is pretty bad a rating itself
The books are in no way kid friendly, some real fucked up stuff happens pretty early, and it gets weirder, bloodier, and more fucked up before the end. Firmly in the 15 and up category as far as I’m concerned, and it gets grim enough some teens may just be bummed out by it.
The books started off darker than it ended. The beginning definitely leans more into some slasher horror vibes, which was supported by the harsher artworks, but mellowed out as the books go on.
Having watched the whole season, I really don’t understand why this was rated “mature” on netflix UK. Sure, there were a few deaths and scary parts, but I wouldn’t rate this above a 15 (or maybe even a 12… none of the violence was bloody or graphic) in the UK movie ratings (we don’t have TV ratings on every show like the US does), or a TV-14 in US TV ratings. It’s maybe a touch worse than A Series of Unfortunate Events, but not by a whole lot. That being said, I’m not familiar with the source material, so if it goes really dark, they could just be rating the whole series, including future seasons as “mature” since they know what’s coming and don’t want kids to watch a show now that’s going to get a lot worse down the line.
Would this be appropriate for a 7 year old? It sounds like something that my daughter would like, but something too scary would freak her out.
Thanks for the review, sounds worth checking out.
BTW, did you all cover Giri/Haji? Because you’re missing out if you haven’t. Possibly the best TV I’ve seen in some time.
After Conner’s first day in school he goes to a party and meets a blond girl who immediately wants to have sex with him. The horror. Unfortunately his PTSD kicks in and he sees the boy who killed his father “It’s your fault he’s dead” So that probably means that Conner blames himself for what happened. Ah, There it is. It’s the “It’s all my fault trope.” (1)(1) https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItsAllMyFaultThe trope never fails. This is usually followed by the “You did everything you could” trope(2) https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/YouDidEverythingYouCouldCan we please get reviews ? I have things to say.
It’s always irritating seeing someone new to TV Tropes. I was this way a few years ago. Ugh, still embarrassing to think back to it.
TV tropes is fun and all but equating trope usage with bad storytelling is a scary fallacy. Similar to people who think stories can’t be good if they don’t surprise you.
The amount of time he spends overtly blaming himself is about 5 minutes of screen time.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Administrivia/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreTools
I get the feeling this show would be slightly different if Stranger Things didn’t exist.
Now I know tons of folks done died via flashbacks but why does the first person who died in real time gotta be a brotha? It’s such a cliche one would think every fucking casting director would push against it. Smh
The first person who dies in real time is Asian.
Lol, like yeah, when did a black guy die? Did I miss that scene?
Rufus from Supernatural got killed with a bag put over his head around episode 6, after leaving a message for Nina.
It wasn’t Rufus, he’s Ellie’s kid. It was the teacher who knew Nina’s husband back in the day. But I do know who you mean. Forgot about him.
I knew it had the potential to be confusing, but I couldn’t resist it: the guy who played the teacher had a very memorable recurring role on Supernatural as a character named Rufus.
Off screen.
He stabbed himself in the chest with a key and immediately combusted. His house is then immediately shown exploding. That’s a pretty liberal definition of offscreen.
that happened on screen after the x files dude was killed?
It’s notable they change races around. In the books (SPOILER) the dad’s girlfriend was a brilliant black women, and the villian literally removed everything from her head to make her disabled. The racial aspect of this is not stated explicitly, but there’s more acknowledgement of racial issues in the book. There is no “identity” key, but two separate gender swap and race swap keys which at one point Kinsey uses to escape the consequences of something and gets away, but the way she is treated as “invisible” as a teenage black girl plus the assumptions people have is a major part of that episode.
Black Hole
I saw the first three episodes, because of this review, and unless this article is talking about stuff later in the series, I wasn’t that impressed. I think this might be the case of a reviewer liking the source material and knowing the story and not seeing it as a viewer for the first time in a visual medium.The story mostly is driven by an eight year old, who screams his lines. The “Phantom Menace” rule in effect..never have a little kid be your lead. No one really explains what is going on. The two adults in the house, the mom and the uncle, weirdly do not know the history of the house or “forgot” it. (something about adults). The family was traumatized by their dad being shot to death, and the show weirdly has the teen daughter hanging out with a group who loves horror movies and casts her in their Super eight style movie, where she is covered in blood, then act surprised when she freaks out. (they all know her dad was recently murdered)..which makes them about as clueless as you can get. The older son acts like a jerk for no reason. Both the older kids are strangely unimpressed with the discovery of “magic” keys..which should be a big deal.The mother has to play double denial, refusing to deal with her husbands death and what it is doing to her kids, and the fact that the house is magic. The actress does not seem what to do or how to play this and she looks like a deer in the headlight. And for being “family friendly” the main antagonist throws a kid in front of a train and kills him, and kills another guy riding him during sex strangling him. This is just in the first three episodes. But then with the little kid, the tone switches to Harry Potter first movie tame. The tone is all over the place.
What you don’t mention is that the effects of being hit by the (subway) train are not shown. He goes over the platform in 2 seconds, then the train comes, then the portal closes and we’re back to the small town.
If that kid went under the train, he either died or got dismembered.
Source: A friend of mine from back home in NYC fell on the tracks just as the train was coming and he lost both his legs. Would’ve bled to death too if not for being incredibly lucky that a medic was in the station to start working on him until the ambulance arrived.
Read the comic books. Overall, I thought this was an ok adaptation, though the “ending” (which opens the door for a second season or serves as a finale if it’s not renewed) was rushed. They made a lot of things that were subtle in the books much more overt, and sort of “dumbed” the whole thing down a bit, as well as pulling back on the horror in favor of high school drama.
I am sorely disappointed with this show. Netflix’s Looke & Key is the most dull, unimaginative and limp adaptation that could possibly be. They clearly had no budget to realize the visuals from the comic series, which is pretty stupid considering that Stranger Things is filled with horror SFX, so Netflix has the money to do a proper production. Seriously, this show is based on a comic book, why bother if you have no intention of making this a bonanza of incredible visuals that the adaptation demands! On top of that, they basically took the original story and have turned it into CW like, angsty teen romance as the focus with a mystery/magic/slight fear background instead of the insane mystery/horror/mind bender it is supposed to be. We are talking kids having multiple outings as a ghost, blood, gore, heads being opened with a key, the miniature embodiment of emotions taken out of said head and traped in bottles, punks, bullying, crazed teenagers, murders, sex, drugs, out of control drunk of a mother, depths of depression, the War of Independence, rape & sex abuse (they are two different things in this case), demons, possessed murderous American colonialists, huge shadow monsters and large scale destruction, people becoming giants, gay bashings, and gay love story, a gender bending, magic molten iron… so much more, but we got an EXTREMELY vanilla BASIC teen drama with less stakes than Supernatural (which I admit I have never watched). I am SW:TROS level disappointed. So completely off the mark, and even boring. I had to force myself to finish the season. This should have been a twelve course meal at Per Se, and we got a vegan bologna sandwich.
Seems to me they thought the source could be ‘tweaked’ to appeal to the YA audiences, but that just shows how they missed what the story was doing. It’s right up there on the screwed up horrow league table. Yes, there’s a lot of YA stuff in the story but that gives the violence and supernatural events something to push off of. It’s that mixing that made it so good. I’m gutted that Netflix seem to have dropped the ball on this. I’m atough critic though. I though The Boys dropped the ball too. For me Legion is the adaptation that really managedto create something new and exciting.
Only one episode in and I was getting that kind of vibe from the show, which is disappointing. It also looks as if they rushed through all of the plot? The episode descriptions definitely lean towards a huge chunk of the story having been covered, or all; properly handled, this could have had 1-2 parts per season.
This is the exact kind of instantly believable, lived-in 3-sibling dynamic that I would want for an adaptation of Over Sea, Under Stone – step one in making up for that abomination of a Dark is Rising film.
Having now watched the entire season, I’ve just come back here to say that I had no idea it was possible to be equal parts really clever and really stupid. Mostly predictable with a few surprises along the way, but a lot of insonsistencies (Kinsey gets rid of her fear and then is screaming and terrified in the finale), and a lot of “this only happened because we need to move the plot along” (like not keeping two things that come together to create a terrifying weapon apart – why would you give one part to the person who’s going to retrieve the second part so that inevitably the baddie will have both parts in their possession when they catch that person?). I don’t know how I feel about this. It kept me entertained, and I liked the cool, clever bits, but the characters just randomly pick up the idiot ball and all the clever bits just get lost in the shuffle. I’ll probably watch season 2 if it drops during a TV/network hiatus (like this one was because of awards season), but I’m not particularly optimistic about it. Hey, maybe they’ll surprise me.
This show lost me after episode 3… right when the sister did something stupid and started doing reckless and stupid things. If you remove an emotion, like fear, you’re supposed to be fear-less, not irrational! Also, telling others about the key… I completely lost it! lol… I gave it another chance after skipping a day and pondering over it. I’m now on episode 6 now and I’m seething at this sister character… Don’t get me started on the self loathing older brother, clueless mother, useless uncle and harry potter kid, who is going to get owned by female Voldemore.
I binged this over the course of three days. When I introduced my wife to it, she and I binged the entire thing together on a single Saturday. It’s just great. I’d give it an A. Not really sure where the B rating came from, as there seemed to be little to no negative comments in this review.
SPOILERSLike Umbrella Academy I found this addictive and entertaining, and as another comment notes, equal parts clever and stupid. Too much YA boarding school bullshit and teen drama. The best part was how they introduced the keys, you never knew when one would pop up or what it would do…and I actually really liked how they used cheap early 00’s CGI like the first Harry Potter for the ghosts; they were also right about which keys were the most interesting (the head key!). But the tone starts off a little inconsistent and then by the end of the season it does go off the rails: Why is the Echo a hot woman? If Echo is a hot woman will Eden now turn into a different person as a demon? TONS of IT echos from Stanley Uris to kid flashbacks to Echo popping up in pictures (Georgie wink). So the demon echo has sex with the teenage son? And is also making out with the teenage daughter? And for Eden again, I must have missed those high school orgies. The last episode really just loses it when they give the lady (who is a gym teacher, what?) the exact thing the demon/echo needs and deliver her directly to the demon. And then they open the black door and for some reason instead of being there, as there is nothing that can stop her, Echo has them throw the other lady in there…when Echo could have just walked in killed them all and kept the “John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness” door open. And then the other final reveal that she was also the kid…so she has been sitting through hours and hours of high school classes? I definitely felt pretty punked.
I watched this. It had some good parts and not so good parts. The good was the special effects and pacing. The bad was the plot really was an “idiot plot”. Really the whole story would not happen if the people did not act like idiots. A lot of people giving the villain what she wants, not taking basic precautions and lack of communication between the characters about stuff where is they only told each other what they knew, it would have solved everything. Plus, the main villain really had some inconsistent rules about what she could and could not do. (like implying she could not get the keys herself, but later just walking all around the house like it was nothing)I give it a “B”
It feels mostly toothless. All the high school stuff needs to be cut! Sadly it occupies 3/4 of the show. There’s no effort to make Lovecraft Matheson not look exactly
like Lunenburg where it was filmed, so why not officially change the
setting to the UNESCO World Heritage Site?