How ‘Squid Game’ turned childhood games deadly
IT’S crazy how childhood games have a macabre ring to them now that we’ve watched the new Netflix sensation Squid Game. The South Korean survival drama has become an overnight hit, earning it the accolade of being one of the most-watched shows in Netflix history.
The premise is simple. It focuses on a group of desperately indebted people who are tricked into a deadly tournament of children’s games. The only way to win 38 million is to survive until the last man standing.
According to The Wall Street Journal, creator Hwang Dong-hyuk came up with the idea for the show more than a decade ago when he was living with his mother and grandmother.
The reason for Netflix signing it on was because they “thought the class struggles shown in the series spoke about reality”.
But what also hit close to home is many of the games played in the series encompassed a sort of nostalgia, only this time, you play until someone dies.
One game in particular that caused much debate on social media was Red Light, Green Light. The playground game where players stop and go at a tagger's command is one of six games with fatal consequences.
One could compare it to our very own version of Red Rover. Only this one is much more sinister and particularly gruesome.
Another game South Africans are familiar with is Tug of War. In the series, two teams of 10 use a lift to take them to a high platform. Each person is locked to a rope and starts pulling. But this is not just any game of Tug of War – once you start slipping off the edge, it’s tickets for you.
In the Gganbu episode, players pair up to play marble games. There aren’t even concrete rules to Squid Game marbles; you just have to play any game you make up with your partner using 20 marbles and whoever has all the marbles at the end is the winner.
What’s scary, though, is the masked man in a pink military jumpsuit standing next to you threatening to shoot you point-blank if you were to lose said game of marbles.
Arguably scarier is the creepy giant animatronic doll, which shoots laser beams at you in Red Light, Green Light.
Kids from the ’80s will recognise her as the evil version of the plasticine girl with polio who stands guard to the entrance of every grocery store and shop, begging you with her sad eyes to donate to some cause or another while her forlorn teddy looks on.
Now that Squid Game has been signed for a second season, it would be interesting to see what the creators come up with. Our money’s on a gory version of