Horror, Adventure and Adaptation: Locke & Key from Comics to Netflix (2 of 3)
/Julia Round & Terrence Wandtke
JR
I think that’s another great point, just keeping the focus on Rodriguez’s art for a bit longer – it is a really interesting fit for this sort of comic. He’s an amazingly talented artist and can really capture emotion but with great clarity in his lines and quite vibrant coloring. His work looks so unique! Personally I find it almost cartoony at times (that’s not a negative by the way) – but at the same time he really conveys the despair and hopelessness of particular characters – in Tyler’s hunched shoulders and shadowed eyes, for example.
Locke & Key Volume 4
I saw Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez speak at Comic-Con some years back when Locke & Key was still being published, and I hadn’t realized until then that Rodriguez is a trained architect. It really shows in his rendering of Keyhouse! As well as the schematics that appear on the inside covers of the trade paperbacks, the house itself looks properly creepy, but realistic – I can image it actually existing in some Gothic corner of America. It’s a classic haunted house with all its turrets and angles, but anchored in reality.
Locke & Key: Grindhouse
TW
Of course, the haunted house is another element of the story that could easily be clichéd but the comic manages to use recognizable Gothic design to evoke House on Haunted Hill without crossing over into The Addams Family. (As you mentioned in regard to the comfy feel of the quirky town, the Netflix series keeps the house brightly lit with an atmosphere of antique opulence that makes the space much more wonder-filled.) A bit more on the comic book series in that regard: once in the Keyhouse mansion, the Locke family becomes largely dysfunctional with Nina drinking away her feelings after losing her husband and killing one of the intruders. Tyler, the older son, lives in the midst of anger and guilt; Kinsey, the only girl, struggles with her sadness over perceived inadequacies, and Bode, the younger son, deals with the way others question his childish attempts to understand and normalize the violence he has experienced.
Keyhouse becomes a place where they alternately stew and cope and it’s quickly revealed that their father’s murder by high school thugs was orchestrated from a distance by the ghostly woman in the well. Again, this could be another tiresome horror convention but in the comic it is dealt with deftly enough that the haunted house merely reflects the horror of the Lockes’ everyday life. Also, in regard to the panel design, Rodriguez’s other architectural design for the comic, he loves using inset panels. Smaller panels are regularly set atop/inside larger panels, often placing everyday life within the context of the depiction of horror. And while I do have several more things to say about the comic series, we should definitely talk more about the Netflix adaptation. From what you’ve already stated, I think you’re a bit more appreciative (despite some general disappointment).
JR
I think whenever you adapt material into a new medium there are going to be disappointments and I certainly wasn’t happy with all the changes that the Netflix series made. I’ve already mentioned the cutesy small town feel and, along similar lines, your point about the space of the house feeling much more ‘wonder-filled’ is excellently put. There seemed a lot of other plot changes that were designed to hype up the drama and align the TV series more easily with new generic expectations. This is something we’ve seen before in comics-to-television adaptations – The CW’s iZombie and Fox’s Lucifer both mutilated their source material to make it fit into the more familiar structures of television detective drama. Netflix’s Locke & Key literally opens with a man on fire! – that’s about the most dramatic start I can think of and it’s a far cry from the subtle trauma of the comic.
Comics scholar Pascal Lefèvre talks about the different ontologies (the concepts attached to a particular medium) of comics and the screen and claims that these produce four main problems of adaptation. These are the need to add/delete material from a long-running comic, the loss of narrative complexity that the comics page layout allows; the dilemma of translating artwork to photography, and the addition of sound/movement compared to comics’ silence and stillness. We’ve already spoken a bit about the first three of these: the addition of a dramatic start, and the loss of Rodriguez’s page layouts with their repeated sequences and embedded panels, and his artistic style and architectural skill. So with Lefèvre’s final point in mind I’d just mention the soundtrack, which was generally OK but edged towards the mawkish at points – like Billie Eilish’s ‘You should see me in a crown’ playing when the Crown of Shadows is worn in Episode 9. Great song! – but too literal, and too intrusive.
I guess what I’m saying is that a lot of the subtlety of the comic seemed abandoned quite quickly in favour of a ‘fantastic adventure’ set against a small town high school backdrop and usual teenage problems. That said, some things were done really well – the casting worked for me, particularly Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge (playing both male and female incarnations flawlessly), and Darby Stanchfield as Nina Locke. It also reinforced one of the things I liked about the Locke & Key comic, which is that it has (at least) three strong, independent and memorable female leads – this definitely translated across into the television show for me.
TW
I’m glad that you mentioned the medium-based considerations of adaptation. We’ve seen creators who don’t understand comics (Ang Lee with Hulk) who try to approximate comic aesthetics in film in a way that disrupts the film experience in a bizarre way; creators who do understand comics (Zack Snyder with Watchmen) who try to replicate comic frames in way that clumsily hampers the film’s portrayal of time; and creators who do understand comics (Shari Springer Berman with American Splendor) who reimagine the comic experience through live action and animation and create an intertextual experience. Carlton Cuse, Meredith Averill, and Aron Eli Coleite don’t attempt any of this with Locke & Key but rather regard the comic book as narrative source material for television story they’re crafting—and despite my appreciation of the comic book, I’m just fine with that. We’ve seen this done effectively with a few of the series that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation.
Even though the comics format is used exceedingly well to represent the Locke & Key story in its original form, it is not uniquely tied to the medium and I always thought it could be successfully adapted. And one other disclaimer to make along those lines: despite the love of horror that I know we share, I was initially game for the genre-based tonal shift to family and teen drama. So much can be done within a series like Gilmore Girls with a world based on small town whimsy, quirky/funny characters, and the incidental presence of good pop music. (And the dark fantasy of the comic book could provide a twist and new depth to this familiar territory.) However, the believable family dynamics and compelling drama that represent teen angst is difficult to carry off and often needs a brilliant writer like Amy Sherman-Palladino at the helm.
Unfortunately, after consciously bringing these family and teen elements to the forefront, I think the series falls down in this regard. Once the mythology is established in the comic book, we have several loosely defined stand-alone issues in “Keys to the Kingdom.” With the mythology leading to a further exploration of horror, we have a Calvin and Hobbes homage that exposes the darkly humorous and horrible underbelly of Calvin’s overactive imagination (represented through Bode). To again clarify, I was not looking for that sort of metatextuality in the Netflix series but I am using this stand-alone as point of contrast for what is not so successful in the new narrative context.
Once the mythology is established in the television series, we have a very roughly defined stand-alone episode in “The Black Door” (leading to teen drama). After seeing Rendell kill a friend via one of the memory jars in the previous episode, the story revolves around Kinsey and Tyler’s reaction. While their shock is understandable (especially because most flashbacks represent an ideal father), their reactions are not and come from an easily accessed set of stock situations for teen drama. Hoping to visit the sea cave connected to the deaths of her father’s friends, Kinsey puts her own interests in front of her friends and convinces them to film their horror opus in the caves. To begin, why does the now fearless Kinsey require anyone to accompany her to the caves? Regardless, when her friends are put in danger and their film equipment destroyed, she learns an important lesson about her own impulses and behavior.
And reeling from this revelation about his father, Tyler fails to show at the conveniently ill-timed fundraiser organized by the good girl Jackie and instead drinks at a party and has sex with the bad girl Dodge. To begin, why does Tyler fall harder than Kinsey when his memories of his father fall are less favorable than everyone else’s memories? Regardless, when he deals with the aftermath (especially by learning that Dodge is not just bad but seemingly evil with a capital “E”), he again acts responsibly in regard to the keys, his family, and of course the good girl Jackie. While I am focusing on a low point of the series for me, I think it is important to deal with it in these terms. The family and teen drama are too often cheapened with quick resolutions that point to lessons learned about the values of family and friendship. Nina’s fall back into alcoholism barely lasts two episodes before she visits the local AA group. (Curiously, her alcoholic calm allows her to remember the keys—an interesting idea that could complicate straightforward family values if explored further.)
Regardless, I was also very impressed with the casting: especially with Laysla De Oliveira as Dodge (so good!) and more reservedly do with Emilia Jones as Kinsey and Connor Jessup as Tyler; I was a bit disappointed by the too-cute Jackson Robert Scott but have hopes he’ll grow into his character. Although he replaces one of my favorite comic characters, I did like the small-town quirkiness of Kinsey’s horror-film-loving friend, Scot Cavendish, effectively played by Petrice Jones. Unfortunately, outside the narrative framework provided by the comic book and Scot’s insecure one-liners, I find writing for these good characters to be sometimes lazy, predictable, and strangely mixed.
For instance, at the end of an exposition-heavy penultimate episode, the somewhat expendable Ellie tells the Locke kids to stay at Keyhouse while she retrieves that so very important Crown of Shadows. What could go wrong with this plan? Certainly not a confrontation with the series’ supernatural antagonist that then sets up the culminating excitement of the final episode! Also, due to the way the series sets up a viewer’s bias toward Scot (over Kinsey’s choice of Gabe) as a boyfriend, the big twist of the last episode is nearly spoiled. And again in reference to tone, the last episode makes a strange move from a family and teen drama with supernatural elements to a campy horror adventure with overly clever dialogue of the unlikely teenage team of monster-slayers (like that of Buffy the Vampire Slayer).
Curiously, I am targeting the final episode as a problem but the way that it sets up the twist is actually one of the most pleasant moments of the series for me (as long as I regard it in isolation from the rest of the series). When the Locke clan gathers around for a too standard family hug that is awkwardly posed for the camera, we move into the horrible revelation of Dodge’s plan that will undermine their happiness. Through a montage that re-presents and supplements familiar scenes of the series narrative thus far, we see that Dodge has used the identity key to systematically infiltrate Kinsey’s life as Gabe and the Lockes’ last episode “triumph” was part of Dodge’s larger plan. Although not perfect, the over-the-top happy family motif was undermined and replaced with sort of dread (albeit a dread that really serves to encourage us to watch the next season). Julia, you’ve already mentioned some of the less successful horror contrivances with the man on fire and the sometimes overbearing soundtrack. Are there other portions that succeed (or fail further) in terms of your expectations for Locke & Key as a horror series?
Julia Round’s research examines the intersections of Gothic, comics and children’s literature. Her books include Gothic for Girls: Misty and British Comics (University Press of Mississippi, 2019, and winner of the Broken Frontier Award for Best Book on Comics), Gothic in Comics and Graphic Novels: A Critical Approach (McFarland, 2014), and the co-edited collection Real Lives Celebrity Stories (Bloomsbury, 2014). She is a Principal Lecturer at Bournemouth University, co-editor of Studies in Comics journal (Intellect Books) and the book series Encapsulations (University of Nebraska Press), and co-organiser of the annual International Graphic Novel and Comics Conference (IGNCC). She shares her work at www.juliaround.com.
Terrence Wandtke is a Professor of Literature and Media Studies at Judson University in Elgin, IL where classes taught include Comic Books and Graphic Novels and Media Theory. He has directed the school’s film and media program, served as the area chair of Comics and Comic Art for the Popular Culture Association Conference, and currently acts as the editor of the Comics Monograph Series for the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is author of The Comics Scare Returns: The Resurgence in Contemporary Horror Comics (RIT), The Dark Night Returns: The Contemporary Resurgence in Crime Comics (RIT), and The Meaning of Superhero Comic Books (McFarland); he is the editor of the collections Robert Kirkman: Conversations (forthcoming UP of Mississippi), Ed Brubaker: Conversations (UP of Mississippi), and The Amazing Transforming Superhero: Essays on the Revision of Characters in Comic Books, Film, and Television (McFarland).
