Locke & Key: parents' guide
Best for ages 13 and up. Rated TV-14.
A spooky fantasy mystery for young teens about three siblings who move into their murdered father's ancestral home and find magic keys. It's darker than the premise suggests: the father's shooting is replayed in flashbacks, a shape-shifting demon manipulates kids, and deaths include a man who kills himself with a key, a strangling, and a slit throat in the final season. Teens drink, smoke marijuana and make out half undressed, sex involving a teen is implied, their mother relapses into drinking, and language includes s-words and one f-word. The show treats grief thoughtfully, which is why 13 works for most kids who like a scare.
What's in it
Violence
ModerateA teen shoots the father dead in flashbacks witnessed by his son, wounding another family member, and fistfights, strangling, suffocation and death by fire follow. The final season is the bloodiest, with a snapped neck, a slit throat and a bloody corpse.
Language
ModerateSeveral s-words including bullshit, plus hell, ass, asshole and dickwad, God and Jesus as exclamations, and a child giving the middle finger. Plugged In heard a single f-word in the series finale.
Sex and nudity
ModerateTeen couples make out while partly undressed, showing a bra, boys talk about sex and dry humping, and a teen's sexual encounter is implied offscreen in season 1. An adult woman in her underwear asks a man to choke her during foreplay. No nudity.
Drinking, drugs and smoking
StrongTeens drink at parties and at a bar that doesn't check IDs, smoke marijuana, and one comes home high. The siblings' mother, a recovering alcoholic, starts drinking again in season 1, later goes to AA, and revisits memories of her drinking endangering the family.
Scary or intense scenes
ModerateA demon that tricks children and then turns on them, possession, skeletons trapped in a mind prison, a girl's body at the bottom of a well, and a man crushing a sparrow in his hand. Grief over the father's murder runs through every season.
Sensitive topics
- Death of a parent
- Suicide
- Animal death
- Addiction
Worth talking about
Each sibling handles their father's death differently, from anger to guilt to pretending everything is fine. How do people grieve differently, and what actually helps?
Similar picks around 13+
Checked October 13th, 2026 against Common Sense Media, Plugged In, Wikipedia, netflix.com. The age is our judgment, not an official rating, and every family draws its lines differently: read the notes, not just the number. Spotted something we missed? Tell us. How we rate.