A Little Fumbling With the Keys - Friday Video Distractions by Mike Norton

  This time last week Netflix manifested the first season of Locke and Key. Ten parts, appearing as a package on February 7th, each running between 40 and 56 minutes - so roughly 8 hours if one's of a mind to binge.
   Another comics-to-screen adaptation, another supernatural adventure, and another based on something written by Joe Hill. (I did a few paragraphs on AMC's adaptation of his N0S4A2 back in November.) The comics, written by Joe Hill and illustrated by Gabriel Rodrguez, have enough differences from this adaptation that I've already seen a few fans of the comic being thrown by the show not delivering specifics they expected.
   The premise is rich with potential, though to be candid it's a gimmick-rich variety of potential that may appeal to me a little more than it may to you.
  A violent tragedy results in the murder of Rendell Locke, a husband and father of three in Seattle.
  In the wake of his death, Nina, his widow, who we later learn is roughly six years into sobriety, makes a huge decision for her family. Feeling the reminders of what they went through, and all the eyes on them, will prevent them from healing and moving on if they stay put, she packs them up - to the protest of all three children - and they drive cross-country to the departed's childhood home - an estate, really, in coastal Massachusetts. Rendell rarely and reluctantly spoke about his years growing up there, and seemingly had no intention of ever returning.
  The long-abandoned property needs considerable rehabilitation, but is still perfectly inhabitable. Nina is well-practiced in restoring furniture and home interiors, so she sets about working on that for both the obvious benefit of her family, and as a therapeutic focus for herself.

  The three kids, teens Tyler and Kinsey, and young Bode, each try to adapt - the teens far more reluctantly then their young brother.
  The high school is in session a week ahead of the grade school, so Tyler and Kinsey are almost immediately thrown into a social scene where the locals both think of the ancestral family home as practically haunted, and are aware of the tragedy that uprooted and sent them across the continent, so there seems to be no real advantage to them to having moved. All the same level of attention as they left behind, this time added to by the fact that they're surrounded by curious strangers.
   Young Bode, meanwhile, both adapts to the adventure of a new and mysterious place, a potential lifeline to the father he's so recently lost, and has a week of leisure in which to indulge the

exploration. Odd, inarticulate whispers soon lead him to the first of what will become a series of old, ornate keys, and out to the well house in a poor state of repair, where his looking and calling down the dark well brings him a reply - a young woman's voice, calling herself an echo.
   Bode begins to find out that the keys he's finding have unique, magical abilities, and then that at least one being is focused on getting them.   One key allows the user to unlock and open any door such that it opens as any other door, anywhere, so long as the user's seen the other door before, even if just in a photograph. Another unlocks any mirror, immediately summoning a silent, creepy doppelganger which beckons the viewer to pass through the glass into the odd, reflection world beyond the glass. Another key allows a person's mind to be externalized as a unique door, leading to a place that contains all of their memories. Not only can that person visit it and revisit specific memories, but so can others who have entered, and in time it becomes clear that there are potential advantages to being able to directly place things in that special place, or remove them from them.
    Yet another key enables the user to astral project, leaving behind a seemingly lifeless body as they pass through the open door, enabling them to float, fly, visit seemingly anyplace unseen and unheard, except by lingering spirits. One key opens a music box with special powers of influence. Another opens a cabinet that eventually reveals itself as having a miraculous capability of its own. And, gradually, on and on.
   Bode begins to clue his older siblings in on all this, and the evidence is too strong to ignore.

   Elements of mystery and threat begin to rise, most of them eventually leading back to sketchy stories of things that happened to the departed Rendell and his high school friends some 20 years earlier. Lives were lost, and one of the group ended up institutionalized.
    It's often inventive, giving the audience plenty to conjure with, all mixed in with the pluses and minuses of mixing with new people - potential friends and social adversaries.
    It was three quarters of the way through episode seven before I caught myself cursing at a couple of the characters, annoyed by actions that seemed much more driven by the needs of the plot - sustaining the menace - than those of the characters, but that passed fairly quickly. Yeah, spending this much time alone, binging movies and shows, probably isn't ideal.   The final acts of the show disappointed me a little, as a doesn't-quite-work twist was too forced and unsupportable to be clever, and the second season (if there is one) will be built on the ramifications of that twist. Still, all in all I was entertained, the magical gimmicks continued to interest me, and I liked enough of the characters to want to see what happens to them next.
   If you decide to watch it, let me know how it struck you.
   Regardless of what you decide to watch or do, enjoy the weekend!    -Mike

Shows and movies hit on in previous posts:

 Sept. 20th: Mindhunter (Netflix)

     Sept. 27th: What's The Matter With Helen, The French Connection, and Frenzy. (Early '70s R-rated movies I saw with my mom)

     Oct. 3rd:    Preacher (AMC), Stumptown (ABC), Sunnyside (NBC), The Good Place (NBC), and Jack Ryan (Amazon Prime).

     Oct. 11th:  Joker (still in theaters), and In The Tall Grass (Netflix)

     Oct. 18th:  El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (Netflix)

     Oct. 25th: Dolemite Is My Name (Netflix)

     Nov. 1st:   Watchmen (HBO series), The Kominsky Method (Netflix)

     Nov. 8th:   Seconds (1966 movie, currently available as part of Amazon Prime)
     Nov. 15th: Dr. Sleep (current theatrical release, but probably not for long), Horace and Pete (2016 web-produced series, currently on Hulu)
     Nov. 22nd: NOS4A2 (AMC, now on Hulu) and Man In The High Castle (Amazon Prime)

     Nov. 29th: The Irishman (Netflix), The Mandalorian and The World According To Jeff Goldblum (both on Disney+), light touches on Watchmen (HBO) and Ray Donovan (Showtime)
  Dec, 6th: The Booth At the End (Amazon Prime), and Us (HBO).

Dec 13th:  Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (Amazon Prime), The Feed (Amazon Prime), 6 Underground (Netflix movie).

  Dec 20th:A Christmas Carol (FX), The Expanse (Amazon Prime), Killing Eve (BBC America)
  Dec 27th: Lost In Space season 2, and first impressions of The Witcher, both on Netflix.
  Jan. 3rd: Black Mirror (Netflix) and Phillip K. Dick's Electric Dreams (Amazon Prime). 
  Jan 10th: Undone (Amazon Prime), Witcher (Netflix) and Dracula (Netflix/BBC One). 
  Jan 17th: Kidding (Showtime) 
  Jan 24th: No shows, just some movie mentions as I recall some places that no longer exist.
  Jan 31st: October Faction (Netflix) and the finale of The Good Place (NBC).
  Feb 7th: Messiah (Netflix)

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