Locke & Key (Netflix)

A strange blend of fantasy, gothic horror and teen romance, this 10-part series makes a slow build to something interesting and then a quick fade to something less so. Guidance counsellor Rendell Locke has been murdered by Sam, a disturbed student he tried to help. Nina Locke and her three children have fled the trauma in Seattle for Rendell’s hometown in Massachusetts to start over. The plan is to renovate the Key House – the old family home that Rendell left behind and told them little about. Younger son Bodie finds some old keys that call to him and start to unlock the door of his father’s dark past. The keys and their various powers are fascinating and well done, but the graphic violence can be a little much and sits oddly with the familiar high school tropes. The acting is patchy and some of the characters are inconsistent, with teenage daughter Kelsey the best of them. The need to spell out absolutely everything in flashbacks gets tedious by the last few episodes and underestimates the intelligence of the audience – it’s not that hard to figure out what has happened.