Hellbound, review: Netflix's South Korean thriller makes Squid Game feel like a triumph of understatement

Netflix’s secret weapon in its struggle for supremacy against Disney+ and Amazon Prime continues to be its ability to pull surprise global hits out of a hat. It achieved that feat in blockbusting fashion in September when it unleashed Squid Game –a seemingly obscure South Korean thriller that became an international sensation over the space of a weekend.

On the bloodied heels of that series, the streaming service will hope lightning strikes twice as it unveils another South Korean mystery with horror elements. But Hellbound is a very different proposition to Squid Game and achieves the impressive feat of making that earlier drama – with its murderous school-yard games and singing dolls – feel like a triumph of understatement.

Hellbound unspools like a mix of Clive Barker, The Da Vinci Code and the iconic Japanese horror, Ring. It starts in downtown Seoul where a man is interrupted from his morning coffee by three Hulk-like demons who materialise and give pursuit through traffic. They rip him to pieces – spattering blood all over passing cars. And then pound his body to dust.

This is horrifying beyond comprehension. And so naturally all the bystanders are recording the death on their phones. Next a doomsday cult, The New Truth, led by the charismatic yet clearly creepy Chairman Jeong Jin-soo (Yoo Ah-in), turns up for a vigil. And to explain that the victim was a sinner who five days previously was told by an angel that he was going “to hell”. Now he’s there.

Jeong and his followers claim the monsters are a manifestation of God’s judgment. These assertions understandably arouse the suspicions of grizzled detective Jin Kyung-Hoon (Yang Ik-june), who is charged with solving the “murder”. He soon strikes up an alliance with lawyer Min Hye-jin (Kim Hyun-joo). She is drawn into the saga when contacted by a mother who has received a similar death sentence from a smoke-like angel and who expects to be pulled limb-from-limb five days hence.

One of the reasons Squid Game resonated with audiences is that it turned on a hair-pin from astute commentary on class divisions in South Korea (and, by implication, elsewhere) to visceral body horror. However, Hellbound doesn’t have the same nauseating energy and soon settles into a noir procedural with supernatural elements.

It is pacy and there is an engaging sub-plot revolving around the killing six years earlier of Jin’s wife and his teenage daughter’s struggles to process the loss (she has fallen in with the New Truth). Meanwhile, a group of even more extreme true believers, The Arrowhead, are “outing” those targeted by the demons – while subjecting to violent humiliation anyone calling out the deaths as a gory hoax.

Squint and it’s just about possible to see Hellbound – created by Yeon Sang-ho, director of modern zombie classic Train to Busan – as a commentary on the dangers of internet-fuelled conspiracy theories and on how the pandemic has caused us all to reflect anew on our mortality. But the truth is it is simply too pulpy to bear the weight of these subtexts.

The other problem is the CGI “demons” aren’t at all scary and look more like minor Marvel monsters than harbingers of death. As a hokey mystery there is lots to enjoy in these six episodes. Squid Game fans will, however, find it all too easy to wriggle free of Hellbound’s squishy grip.

Hellbound arrives on Netflix today