Locke & Key

[Mera'din 306]

FUCKING FINALLY. Been waiting for a show for this for years. Based on a comic series by Joe Hill. Not as intense as his normal stories/books, but was still a pretty solid story with some interestingly dark turns. I was worried this would never get off the ground. It had been attempted multiple times now and always fell through. In 2010, it was originally going to be a movie through Dimension, then a TV show through Dreamworks. Fox ordered a pilot, but declined it despite it being well received at Comic-con and tried to sell it off to others but had no buyers. In 2014 Universal was going to do a movie trilogy for it but it fell through again and finally in 2017, Hulu ordered a pilot but passed on it also and Netflix finally picked it up. 

 

Really hoping they don't fuck this up, though Netflix has done a good job so far with book adaptations that I've seen and the trailer gives me some hope.
 

 

[Tassifox 413]

Looks interesting. I'm down to check it out.

[Tassifox 413]

Started watching last night. OMG this is an awesome show! I know the original source is a shit ton darker but what I've been watching I love it so far. I'm about 2 eps left of finishing.

[Mera'din 306]

I've only had time to watch a couple episodes so far. Definitely some differences (including the name of the town), but I guess Joe Hill was completely involved in it so I can't really complain. He explicitly wanted to change the name of the town apparently for the show to honor another writer than influenced him (was originally Lovecraft and it was changed to Matheson).

 

Not sure where the show leaves off, but the graphic novel did start a little lighter (outside of their fathers death) and slowly kind of descends it being more and more intense by the end.

[Tassifox 413]

I'm at the tail end of episode 8 (outta 10 eps). And in some ways it feels like it's getting more intense. I love a lot of the visiuals the keys do. The Head Key makes me cringe every time they use it be cause of the sound effects.
Bonus points that Bode is played by the kid who was Georgie from the revamp IT movie.
This show/story makes me feel like it's a lot darker version of Snickets Unforunate events.
 

[Mera'din 306]

The sound effect for the Head Key is definitely amazing/awful.

 

I finished it last night and for about half of the series I was like 'WTF are they even doing!?' because of certain things they changed heavily, but it paid off by the end. They played it out really well and kept the same sort of twists from the original doing new things with it so I was still able to be surprised in places.

 

Curious about what they'll do going forward because there are parts of the story that still need to be told, but they also completely finished the antagonist's storyline as it was in the comics so there's a weird disconnect that could be interesting going forward. 

 

The only part I feel like they didn't do as well as they could have was the build up of the 'echo' in the well.

In the original, Bode spends an extensive amount of time talking to it and learning about the house and keys through it as it gains his trust before it tricks him to get out. Made it feel a lot more sinister and creepy than what they did. That's my only real gripe though.

 

 

Overall, my biggest concern is it feels like they dumbed down a lot of the story and subplot from the original. There were a lot of really cool and complex story things going on in the background and/or past that have some heavy effects on the story that it feels like they abandoned for fear of not being able to wrap it up nicely at the end. It's hard to say though because the creators are heavily involved in the show so they may have shifted things around to throw people off. I hope so.

[Tassifox 413]

I was told some bits on how much darker the original story was.
 

Spoiler

The rape for example being in the beginning for example.

So I can definitely see and kinda feel like they were lighter in some areas.  I am planning on borrowing a friends copy of the graphic novel but it will be really interesting on where they go with the next season.

Also:
 

Spoiler

I felt so sad that Tyler basically got the more gruesome version of the sea monster story that their dad told them all as kids vs Kinsey and Bode. Like I'm sure part of it was his dad prepping him some what that life makes you make a lot of hard choices and all that. But it sucks that he kinda got this semi dark relationship with his dad compared to his siblings.

 

[Mera'din 306]

One good thing outside the TV show to come of this is apparently working on the show has jump started Hill and Rodriguez's desire to do more comics. They've always wanted to but never quite hammered out what to do for the story and always had conflicting work schedules, but now they have a plan in place for it. Interested in seeing what they do with it.

 

I need to get a hold of the graphic novel myself sometime. My first encounter was via the amazing Audio Book/Drama they did of it.