The opinions, viewpoints, and beliefs expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent the opinions, viewpoints, or beliefs of the Titan Times newspaper, Tuscarora High School or Frederick County Public Schools.

This series is not rated since it is a Netflix original but it would definitely be an R rated feature due to adult situations and gratuitous violence, so please keep that in mind when choosing whether or not to watch it.

Based on Andrew Edwards’ review of Squid Game, my wife and I decided to give it a watch. It is the spooky season after all and while I, myself, do not care for scary movies or TV shows, my better half does enjoy a good scare so, during the fall season, I give in and watch scary stuff with her. My first reaction, which was not mentioned in Andrew’s review, was that the entire series is English dubbed. That means they dubbed English over the original language. This is a personal thing for me, I literally can’t stand English overdubbing. It may seem strange but if I watch anything done in a different language, I prefer subtitles; I want to hear the original actors speaking in their native language. So right away I was not super enthusiastic (but that’s more of a personal quirk than a critique of the series).

However, in fairly short order, I found other things to dislike about the series. For starters, I thought the acting was subpar, the actors seemed to be reciting their lines and were not especially convincing in their roles. But beyond that, the gratuitous violence was a real deal breaker for me. I may not love scary stuff, but I can enjoy a good ghost story, or a suspenseful atmospheric thriller, but over the top gore just sort of makes me sick.

As such, by mid-way through the second show in the series, my wife and I decided that this show was simply not for us. Between the dubbing, the marginal acting, and the over the top violence, this is a show that simply did not appeal to me or my wife. Maybe it’s an old person thing?

At any rate, that is my summation of the series, whether you choose to agree with Andrew or me probably has a lot to do with your own personal taste, but, I since I tried the series based on Andrew’s recommendation, I figured it might be fun to provide a counterpoint to his very positive review.

Editor’s Note: I found out from a friendly colleague that the English overdub can be turned off in the Netflix settings so apparently I could have watched this show in the original language… I stand by the rest of my review though!