Netflix gets a bad rap these days, and some of it is justified. The Reed Hastings-led company helped usher in the Steaming Age that, for better and worse, has totally transformed the entertainment industry. Old metrics of success, like making money at the box office, don’t necessarily apply anymore. Now, it’s also all about grabbing as many eyeballs as possible and letting an algorithm dictate almost every creative decision.
The criticism about Netflix is justified, but the streamer has also done good things. (I swear!) It’s given home to odd, idiosyncratic works like The Power of the Dog, Martin Scorsese’s epic drama The Irishman, and Sam Esmail’s apocalyptic end-of-the-world (or is it?) film Leave the World Behind. It has particularly excelled at making and distributing exceptional genre shows like the great League of Legends cyberpunk show Arcane, the superb German time-travel series Dark, and any one of Mike Flanagan’s deeply emotional, and intensely scary, horror programs.
That’s why it’s surprising that Netflix, or anyone else for that matter, hasn’t already scooped up and adapted The Nice House on the Lake as its next big genre hit. The 12-issue limited comic book series, which ran from 2021 to 2022, received plenty of critical acclaim when it was released, including winning the Eisner Award (the Oscars for comic books) for Best New Series. More importantly, its story, about a group of friends who gather at a, well, nice house on the lake under very mysterious circumstances, is perfect for Netflix’s binge-consumption model. This is a story that demands to be told across six, eight, or 10 episodes, to have a big enough budget to fully realize its beautiful, apocalyptical visions, and to be seen by as many people as possible.
It’s the end of the world (and they are about to know it)
Everything seems to be too good to be true at first, of course. Ten friends from various backgrounds, sexes, and beliefs are gathered by their mutual friend Walter to stay at a nice house on a lake in Wisconsin. Once there, they have everything they want: all the gourmet food to consume; almost every book they could ever want to read; every movie and TV show available to download and binge; and so forth. But there’s something vaguely sinister about why they are all gathered and why none of them can remember how they got there in the first place.
By the end of issue No. 1, the truth is revealed: Their vacation house turns out to be a sanctuary from a global apocalypse that has consumed the world in a matter of days. They are seemingly the last survivors on Earth, and Walter was the one to save them. But why? How did Walter know the world was going to end? And can they even trust the images showcasing all of their friends, families, and hometowns were all destroyed? Why are they the only ones spared? And what, and where, is the house on the lake?
A binge-worthy series, in more ways than one
These are all a lot of questions, and they are mostly answered throughout the comic’s 12 issues. The Nice House on the Lake proved to be so addictive that I consumed it in one sitting on one long November day. It’s that good, and all the credit should be given to writer James Tynion and artist Álvaro Martínez Bueno for creating an immersive series that puts you into a far-out scenario and asks deep, philosophical questions while also building thoughtful characters you want to support (or, in some instances, boo).
This is a series that has an unstoppable narrative drive, and just as it answers one question, it generates two more mysteries for you to solve. The key figure to the series is Walter, who is, of course, isn’t who he seems. And Tynion and Bueno do a great job of both letting you know him enough to sympathize with him and keeping him weird enough to not entirely trust him. The look of Walter, particularly his true nature, is outstanding, and it’s a visual that could easily translate to the small screen with all of its unsettling oddness intact.
Friends to the end
Walter isn’t the only character in The House on the Lake. The comic series has a cast of over a dozen characters, and while Tynion does a good job of giving most of them distinctive personalities, a Netflix show could flesh them out and bring them to life more fully. The 10 principals are assembled by the talents they possess as teenagers and students and the careers they’ve chosen as young adults. Ryan and Reginald are the Artists, Norah is the Writer, the comic David is the Actor, accountant Molly is the Mathematician, astronomer Veronica is the Scientist, reporter Sam is the Historian, acupuncturist Arturo is the Person of Faith, Sarah is the Politician, Naya is the Doctor, and pianist Rick is the Musician.
Walter befriended them because they represented the best of humanity, but it’s their flaws that make them the most interesting. My favorites are Reginald, the additional member of the lucky 10 who knows more than the others, and Norah, the trans woman who is the only one who can confront Walter and challenge him.
It’s easy to see these characters and Walter separate from the others as the three clear leads in a Netflix series, and for such rising stars like Doctor Who‘s Ncuti Gatwa as Reg, Baby Reindeer‘s Navi Mau as Norah, or The Crow‘s Bill Skarsgård as Walter to embody these roles with all their considerable talents. But the series doesn’t need stars to work. The concepts sells itself, and the execution, if done right, can make it a Netflix series that could stand next to the streamer’s popular genre hits Stranger Things and The Sandman.
Ditch the spandex and embrace the weird
Comic book fatigue is real, but it’s real only for routine superhero movies and TV shows that don’t bring anything new to the table. How many times can we see Thor save the universe before it gets boring? (The negative reception to Thor: Love and Thunder has already answered that question.) The Nice House on the Lake doesn’t deal with superhero heroes, but it’s not your standard end-of-the-world story either. It splices together sci-fi, mystery, and intimate character drama, and throws them all into a genre blender, creating a very unique story that is terrifying, unsettling, and oddly cathartic all at once.
It’s been a minute since I’ve been so enthusiastic over a potential adaptation of a comic book I’ve just read. The Nice House on the Lake is perfectly fine as it is, a 12-issue limited series that has already spawned a successful sequel, The Nice House by the Sea, but it possesses so much potential that it begs to be adapted into another medium. A streaming series is that medium, and Netflix is the ideal home for such a weird, idiosyncratic story to be seen by millions of people who have ventured into the Upside Down so willingly over the last decade.
