Locke & Key is one of my favorite graphic novel series, for as I said, “Locke & Key is truly one of the best graphic novels I have ever read, hands down.  It just dominates. Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez are superb storytellers, and this first novel makes me anxious to read the rest of the horror series”. So I was so excited to learn that it would be turned into a television series. A pilot had originally been shot for the Fox network in 2011 but they never picked it up, then Hulu had the rights but ultimately passed on turning it into a series, and finally, Netflix obtained the rights and the series debuted this February. As with many Netflix series, all ten episodes dropped at once, but I’m a busy mom who works full time, and it took me two months to finish all the episodes.

The story begins in California when a disgruntled student kills Rendell Locke,  and his grieving family heads back to Massachusetts to the Locke family estate. Nina, a recovering alcoholic is hanging onto her sobriety for dear life, while trying to help her three children adjust to their new home and reality. Tyler and Kinsey are in high school, while the youngest Bode is still in grade school. While out exploring the grounds, Bode finds a supernatural woman hiding in the well, and she convinces him to release her and help her find magical keys that are hidden around the estate. But she is malevolent, and we soon discover she was behind the killing of Rendell. He had been hiding secrets from his youth, as he too, knew of the key’s powers and how they could be twisted for evil. Now, this new generation of Lockes is battling for their lives, and pull some other people from the community into the mess.

Casting is key in any series, and I feel they really hit it out of the park. I loved all thee of the Locke children with the youngest really authentically capturing the wide-eyed innocence of Bode. The older two made the same short-sighted mistakes as they did in the graphic novel, with Tyler doing his best to be the level headed one and Kinsey’s lack of fear being a problem. The series eliminated a character who raped the Lockes’ mother and helped killed the Locke father, so Nina’s back story wasn’t as tragic and her character was allowed more growth.

I was very pleased with the series- it was a strong adaptation of the source material, especially as the pilot episode was co-written by author Joe Hill. The graphic novel was definitely in the horror genre with fantasy elements, but I’d say the series did a 180° with it skewing more towards fantasy with a few horror elements. This worked well, as some extremely dark issues were eliminated, which opened the narrative up to more ages, although it was still for a fairly mature audience.

While the series faithfully replicated much of the plot from the six-book series, many threads were left unexplored as to give the tv series room for growth if it was picked up for a second season- and it was! There were some fun reveals in the last few minutes that will lead to the Locke family facing more adversity, as there are two new demonic foes who are masquerading as friends. I look forward to more adventures with the Lockes!

-Nancy