REVIEW ‘School Tales: The Series,’ – Delivers Solid Horror Stories While Making Problematic decisions.

School Tales: The Series is a Thai anthology horror series streaming on Netflix. Every school has a story. A story of murder, suicide, or revenge. Of events so traumatic that they leave something behind. Something that haunts the place where the story occurred. But these are just stories, right?

Throughout eight episodes, this series seeks to chill viewers with spine-tingling tales of horror, gore, and suspense. At this mission, it does ok. While atmosphere and mood are handled well throughout, there are a handful of glaring problems that hold School Tales: The Series from ever truly managing to terrify.

The first problem that these stories have comes from their characters. With only a couple of exceptions, the vast majority of the students who face the perils imposed on them by the undead and ghosts are downright jerks. You have little to no empathy for these teens who either have done cruel things in your brief time with them or made such terrible choices within the circumstances they find themselves that you are left mostly just with the inclination to roll your eyes at their fate instead of feeling terror for them. This inability to generate empathy for the individuals who populate the bulk of these stories takes most of the teeth out of these tales.

The second major narrative problem that this series presents is its overuse of bullying as its key motivation for students to become mixed up with the supernatural forces that inevitably run amok. While I would expect some tales to feature this setup given the setting, this plot is beaten into the ground by the time the final credits roll. Also, while I’m talking about bullying, not only is it frequently present in School Tales: The Series, but it leans hard into these moments as well. Active beatings and pressuring to commit suicide are not out of bounds for this series. So, if such events make you uncomfortable, you might want to steer clear of this one altogether. Had it not been for my needing to finish this series to review it, I would’ve tapped out during one of these scenes myself.

But not all is bad on the narrative side of things. Some of the monsters that are seen are interesting and not every scenario ends up playing out exactly as I expected it to. There is even a largely comedic story in the back half of the series that took me entirely by surprise. Although, mentioning this episode does lead me to another problem this series has, and that involves how it treats some of its characters.

During the entirety of School Tales: The Series there is a single individual that isn’t what most people would call skinny. That individual is utilized almost purely as the butt of jokes. When she is first introduced, she is preceded by a parody of the famous Jurassic Park water vibrating in the glass scene as her footsteps send tremors before her. The fact that much of the episode’s comedy is focused on her as she bumbles through the story makes it further feel like the series has singled her out for laughter. And it feels like the reason is obvious. While the character ends up being one of the few genuinely good characters in the series, the reduction of her to an oaf looks bad in a lot of ways.

The other problem the series has is where skin tones are concerned. While southeast Asia is known for having a wide range of skin tones, the series presents virtually every major character as being decidedly on the pale end of the spectrum. While this would be not great on its own, one particular episode titled “Beautiful” makes a loud and clear statement about why this is.

As one might guess, this episode focuses on a young student who wishes to be more beautiful. While searching on Google for ways to become so, she is offered a deal to instantly become gorgeous. She takes the deal and her wish is instantly granted. Her acne is cleared, her hair looks great, and yup, you guessed it, she is now many shades lighter in skin tone than she was moments before. It is such a radical change that I found it hard to believe that all her classmates were actually able to recognize her. This moment alone makes it so I cannot recommend this series.

So while School Tales: The Series manages to deliver some decent horror stories, its repetitive setups, largely unlikeable cast, and problematic choices concerning its characters drown out what value the series managed to generate.

School Tales: The Series is streaming now on Netflix.