LOS ANGELES: It’s not hard to imagine a world in which “Locke and Key” — the comic book series created by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez that has been now brought to life as a series on Netflix — was the sort of classic book series that lined every child’s shelf. The story goes like this: After the tragic death of a parent, three children move back to their family’s ancestral home. In it, the children find keys that open more than just doors — one opens their minds, allowing them to step back into their memories; one takes them anywhere they want to go; one turns them into ghosts. But there’s something else in the house that wants the keys for itself — and it will stop at nothing until it gets them.
The series was a dark fantasy masterpiece as a comic book, but its journey to the screen has been a long one. One episode was filmed in 2010 and then quickly cancelled, only screened once for a private audience. Another was filmed in 2017, and again given the axe before it could continue. Joe Hill was ready to give up — until Netflix stepped in, allowing him to start the series from scratch once again, with himself as creator.
The series was a dark fantasy masterpiece as a comic book, but its journey to the screen has been a long one. (Supplied)
“(Netflix) said, ‘We’d like a turn.’ They looked at what was best in the comic and said, ‘How can we deliver this from the first scene, from the first episode, straight through?’ And that’s really been their focus. How to deliver those characters in the most satisfying, most electrifying way to the screen. And it does seem like the third time is the charm,” Hill tells Arab News. “They really seem to have connected with the material, and it’s off and running. And the results are luminous.”
Hill — one of the foremost horror writers in the world — is not one to give up easily. Right at the start of his career, he chose to use the name Joe Hill, because he didn’t want the world to know his true identity: Joseph Hillström King, son of the legendary Stephen King. Hill wanted to get his work published on its own merit.
One episode was filmed in 2010 and then quickly cancelled, only screened once for a private audience. (Supplied)
“I was able to keep it a secret — who my parents were — for about 10 years, and get some short stories published, and I broke into Marvel. But almost as soon as I had books to sell, the pen name came apart. Once I started to do public appearances, people figured it out pretty quickly, mostly because of my face,” Hill tells Arab News.
“Locke and Key,” like all of Hill’s work, bears the unmistakable influence of the two people who brought him into this world.
“I always hate when people ask, ‘Who are your biggest literary influences?’ Because there’s almost nothing to say except ‘My mom and my dad.’ I grew up with two writers and I read their stories and I’m an enormous fan of Stephen King’s books and Tabitha King’s books. I read those books again and again, and they can’t help but inform the way that I write and what I write about,” says Hill.
While the comic books had a definite ending, Hill was careful to build the show into something that could continue on past a single season. (Supplied)
The series, starring Emilia Jones, Connor Jessup, Jackson Robert Scott and Darby Stanchfield as the Locke family, does not follow its source material to the letter, something that Hill was adamant about from the beginning.
“There’s no point in doing something that’s lavishly faithful,” he says. “Who needs that? We’ve already got the comic book! I’d rather do something that feels emotionally authentic and true to the source material but still has some inner life of its own and takes some unique risks.”
The series stars Emilia Jones, Connor Jessup, Jackson Robert Scott and Darby Stanchfield as the Locke family. (Supplied)
While the comic books had a definite ending, Hill was careful to build the show into something that could continue on past a single season. First, of course, viewers have to fall in love with it, just as readers did.
“I hope when they get to the end of the last episode of the first season, they feel a clawing emptiness because they know they’ll have to wait six to nine months to get the next season,” Hill says. “Hopefully the show will give people something to thrill to, and then, when it’s over, something to look forward to.”
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