TVSooner or later we’re all going to damnation, only in ‘Hellbound’ hell comes to pick you up personally. The supernatural South Korean horror series took just one full day to surpass the worldwide success of ‘Squid Game’. But should you believe the hype? Or is Netflix just really good at manipulating your viewing habits? Evelien Delgouffe is looking for it in our Viewing guide out for you.
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Let’s face it: ‘Squid Game’ crawled so that ‘Hellbound’ could walk. Without the success of the former series, ‘Hellbound’ could never have attracted the attention it achieved in the first 24 hours after its release. Not that the director and writer behind it doesn’t have any lifting power. You may know Yeon Sang-ho as the creator of ‘Train to Busan’, a hugely popular South Korean zombie horror thriller in which a zombie virus breaks out on a high-speed train from Seoul to Busan.
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In ‘Hellbound’ we also start in Seoul, where a sweaty individual in a coffee bar anxiously keeps his eye on the watch on his smartphone, only to be brutally executed a few seconds later in the middle of the busy inner city by Hulk-like shadow creatures. and be flambéed. The man, who is left with only a heap of smoldering bones and flesh, somehow knew that his last hour had come and that strange event must be worked out by two detectives before the internet and the mass hysteria really explode. The two soon track down the head of an organization called ‘the New Truth’, which claims that the supernatural events are direct manifestations of God. The human legal system doesn’t give a shit and so angels of death come to drag sinners straight and with much clamor themselves to hell. But what makes a person a sinner? And can anyone just be executed in the open without a fair trial? And what if retaliation becomes a trend and extreme factions decide to lend the monsters a hand?
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Although this six-part Netflix series is significantly different in style from ‘Squid Game’ – the structure is less catchy and the use of color as well – there are a few similar denominators. Not only is this series also intended to survive with all the effort in the world or be brutally executed, the story contains a few underlying messages that the creator wants you to think about a little more deeply. We’d almost say it’s a South Korean specialty to create stories that are wildly entertaining on the one hand, and that society’s hypocrisy on the other. In ‘Squid Game’, among other things, capitalism, structural poverty and immorality are criticized. In ‘Hellbound’ the critical view is again focused on religious fanaticism, the power of the internet and how fear and despair give free rein to extremism and violence.
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‘Hellbound’ is good at breaking up and wreaking havoc, but where ‘Squid Game’ really excelled was the instant urge to watch the entire series in one go. In that regard, you have to wait a little longer with ‘Hellbound’ to get used to it. And you should also be a fan of CGI monsters that don’t always run convincingly through the screen. Although it is clear that especially the creatures with a human face will give you the worst nightmares here. But also that as long as there is life, there is hope. In that respect ‘Hellbound’ has a few twists up its sleeve that could produce enough material for a second season.
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Streams or ships?
Stream. Especially if you are a fan of ‘Train to Busan’ and other South Korean hits that are terribly entertaining and at the same time hold your moral compass to the light.
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Our judgment?
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‘Hellbound’ can be viewed in its entirety on Netflix.
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Time left? You can read all our reviews in the Viewing guide.
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ALSO READ:
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REVIEW. ‘Intelligence’: “What’s an actor like David Schwimmer doing in a train wreck like this?”
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