Ever since I started reading Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez’s graphic novel series Locke & Key, I’ve desperately wanted it to be adapted for screen. The comic’s flow and presentation always felt cinematic. An easy sell. Of course there were attempts. Lots of them. At various times since 2010, we’d been promised a series on Fox, a three part movie, a Hulu adaptation...it’s been a wild and upsetting ride for fans.

But I have seen all ten episodes of this Netflix Adaptation. The fact that I can write those words is both a welcome surprise and brings a huge smile to my face. What’s better? It actually works. Sometimes things really do happen for a reason and, after this first season, I’m glad it’s here with Netflix finally.

So let’s get to it.

In a cold open, Mark Cho (Ken Pak) receives a brief, unsettling phone call in the middle of the night. “Rendell Locke is dead,” the voice tells him and Mark immediately panics. He digs through old pictures, newspaper clippings and a map of a house with keys drawn everywhere before finding an ornate key. He jams it into his heart, turns it and immediately is engulfed in flames that spread through the whole house.

And just like that, we’re whisked away to three months after Rendell (Bill Heck)’s murder by a former student, as his wife Nina Locke (Darby Stanchfield) relocates her remaining family to Rendell’s ancestral home of Keyhouse, in Matheson, Massachusetts. The surviving family is obviously having a rough time dealing with the murder and a move across country doesn’t help. Teenagers Tyler (Connor Jessup) and Kinsey (Emilia Jones) are obviously depressed and dealing with PTSD of the night Rendell was savagely killed. Ten-year-old Bode (Jackson Robert Scott), meanwhile, is happy to explore his new, monstrously huge Victorian estate.

During Bode’s exploration, he stumbles across a wellhouse where, from the dark depths, a voice whispers, “Bode.” The voice belongs to a woman named Dodge (Laysla De Oliveira) who tells Bode she’s stuck in the well and that the Keyhouse is full of wonderful keys. Magical keys. Keys that will let you step outside your body. Change the way you look. But there’s one that can take you anywhere in the world.

“Listen for them. They whisper,” she coos.

As Bode begins exploring the vast estate for these magical keys, Tyler and Kinsey try to adjust to a new home and new school at a time when being the new kid can be awkward. Tyler ends up joining the hockey jocks. Kinsey, falls in with the awkward film crowd who’ve dubbed themselves The Savinis (one of a few horror movie easter eggs littered throughout) and are in the middle of shooting their latest opus called The Splattering. Meanwhile, their mother Nina, with the very occasional help of Rendell’s brother Duncan (a sorely underused Aaron Ashmore), tries to understand her late husband’s mysterious past and why he never wanted to return to Keyhouse.

And in the well, the creature named Dodge is secretly plotting her escape. And her revenge on the Locke family.

Netflix’s adaptation feels like a remix of Joe Hill’s Eisner-winning comic series, as it tackles plotlines, characters and themes from the first three volumes. This means that fans of the novel may be surprised at the more immediate directions it takes but it also how it mixes together storylines to create its own narrative. For example, the first key Bode discovers is not the ghost key and by the second episode, the narrative already introduces a key featured keenly in Head Games. By the end of the first few episodes, it becomes quickly apparent this is not a straight adaptation and I think that mostly works to its advantage.

It puts the focus on the Locke kids as they begin interacting and integrating with their new schoolmates and also begin discovering the keys. The sense of joy and awe surrounding the magical keys translates incredibly well to the screen, with fantastic set design and lush production values accentuating the surreal imagery.

When the Lockes discover what they can do with the keys, it awakens their child-like imaginations and belies the potentially insidious nature. In the beginning, Kinsey, for example, uses one of the keys to get rid of her “fear monster.” The result is a much more confident, brighter and, in her own words, the most her she’s been. But it also makes her, and her siblings, more reckless as they use them to solve all of their problems. Eventually Tyler realizes their potential and warns his siblings, “These aren’t toys. They’re weapons.”

With a well-rounded cast of supporting characters, showrunners Carlton Cuse, Aron Eli Coleite and Meredith Averill give the show a very breezy feel that feels right at home with other teen-centric fare on Netflix and the CW. This is where some fans of the more explicit and adult-themed graphic novels will be upset. In terms of tone, Netflix’s adaptation fits in with similar series like Sabrina or Riverdale. So the shocking and vibrant violence from the comic has been muted and the horrific imagery has been reduced or eliminated (no ghostly appearances of a gunshot Rendell and his missing eye here). With its TV-14 rating, the actual horror the comic delivered feels a bit neutered.

My biggest problem with this first season is a lack of terrifying villains. Welcome to Lovecraft made both Dodge and murderer Sam Lesser (played here by Thomas Mitchell Barnet) more insidious and threatening. But Dodge comes across as a sexy seductive spirit and Sam’s presence feels severely diminished. It fits with the more fantasy-adventure This version of Locke & Key is more fantasy-adventure than horror-fantasy.

The final two episodes, though, build to an appropriately freaky and horror-filled climax. It’s helped along by the directing prowess of Vincenzo Natali (Cube), who brings his stylish eye to some fantastic set pieces involving the interplay between shadows and light. I just wish the preceding episodes would have reveled a bit more in the darkness and horror of the comics.

That said, this first season does a lot of great world-building and establishes interesting characters that I think will carry the series forward. I particularly loved where the finale leaves us. It offers some tantalizing foreshadowing of things to come and I hope it gets renewed so it can further stand on its own. While not all fans of the comic series will dig it, I’m excited and optimistic it will only get better from here.

And after almost a decade of waiting, that feels amazing to type.