With the new series Hellbound opens the gate to hell for Netflix. Key dates: an apocalypse in which angels and demons are part of a big event. In addition, the downfall on all channels and social media, image warfare and the struggle for the interpretive sovereignty of inexplicable phenomena.
We are in the year 2022. Inexplicable angelic apparitions prophesy that citizens in South Korea’s capital Seoul are approaching death and even tell them the specific date. When the countdown has expired, the minions from hell appear out of nowhere, exactly to the minute, and murder cruelly. Only a smoking skeleton remains. Always present: smartphone and television cameras that record what is happening.
Who are the real monsters here?
As the people fear and the city sinks into chaos, a religious group called the “New Truth” is seizing the opportunity to offer very simple explanations. The victims are therefore sinners who are punished by God and sent to hell. The number of members of the sect is increasing accordingly. Her militant arm called “spearhead” hunts down those who oppose the representations of the “New Truth”. The upright police officer Jin Kyung-hun and the self-confident lawyer Min Hye-jin stand up against the fanatical supporters and try to expose the legal system manipulated by power groups – but fail because of increasingly impenetrable structures.
Similar to the series Squid Game connects Hellbound violence with social criticism. While with the former, however, the criticism of capitalism is in the foreground, rubs Hellbound take part in the power of church organizations that have a great influence on political and social life in South Korea. Without the support of the churches, politicians in South Korea can hardly win an election. Especially the Protestant “mega-churches”, which attract several thousand believers to their sermons in huge arenas, often make politics against a stronger welfare state, against an understanding with North Korea and against an anti-discrimination law that would protect women and homosexuals.
In the series this culminates in the classic dystopia questions: Who are the real monsters here? The dreaded beings that cruelly kill people? Or is it the people themselves who politicize fears and make society even more brutal? To this end, director Yeon Sang-ho cleverly fiddles with other issues relating to coexistence: Is our legal system fair? Who Deserves Death? When and how do we die? What happens after that? And how does society deal with the unknown and the uncontrollable?
The questions remain largely unanswered, or leave them alone Hellbound the viewer alone with most of them. But that creates a feeling of powerlessness and fear that other series achieve through shock effects. Here it spreads subtly and subliminally. And therefore much more powerful.