Murder mysteries are great for comics, as they feel like movies are still playing out before you. Locke & Key is a reverse murder mystery, as we know who the killer is from the very beginning, and the family knows and is trying to run away from him. A dysfunctional family living in Southern California is the victim of their father being viciously murdered by two mentally ill teens. What the oldest son, Tyler, goes through, as well as his younger brother and sister, is heartbreaking.
We follow the murderer, who ends up in high-security juvie and ends up escaping via supernatural means. The youngest brother in the family, Bode, discovers he can rip his soul from his body through a magical door and turn into a ghost. His family won’t believe him; in fact, every family doesn’t believe each other about anything, and this leads to some tragic deaths and a lot of events that could have been prevented. Seeing this family tear itself apart is frustrating in a satisfying way; it keeps you on the edge.
The story has a satisfying ending with a perfect cliffhanger that opens up an entirely new chapter and can potentially expand the story (which it did with later series), but my favorite part about this comic was the gore and graphic violence as well as the pure insanity of the murderer and his ruthless killings. The comic is a serious page-turner and is perfectly paced with an excellent crescendo.
Overall, Locke & Key is a wonderful horror comic about the supernatural, a being that we don’t ever get to know more about until later in the series, and real-life mortality. A family that clearly loves each other but can’t trust each other worth a dime just makes this comic horrible and wonderful all at the same time.
I'm in North America, I'm just not super familiar with the series.