If you're a fan of horror movies, you can try watching this series. School Tales The Series is a Thailand newly released series that you can access on Netflix. The series that got 5.1/10 rate on IMDb is directed by Phontharis Chotkijsadarsopon. If we take a look at his past works, we can say that he is one of the masters of Thai horror movies. He directed several horror movies such as Pee Nak, Pee Nak 2, Ghost Ship, etc. School Tales The Series consists of eight episodes, each with different storylines and actors. Every episode has less than an hour duration and 6 hours 24 minutes total duration for the whole series. Well, let's dive deeper into interesting aspects of this series and find out the given rate from us to this Thai drama.

    What's your first impression of this series through its poster? As someone who has already watched this series, I think the poster is very well made since it does describe the vibe of the series, which is cold and full of blood. Blue and red are the dominant colors we can see on both posters and throughout the series. According to Thompson and Bowen (2009), light, often called the visible spectrum, gives energy to the movie. It may not be visible, but it provides the object with color so the audience can see the reflection of the light. Blue, as the chosen dominant color on the poster, really screams the coldness of this series. Meanwhile, red describes the intense horror atmosphere the characters face in the series.

    Enough with the description of its poster and the cinematography, let's see how the plot is. I notice that in every episode of  School Tales The Series, there must be cause and effect in their plots. In short, the villains, who are mostly bullies, will face their karma at the end of the episode. Because of that, I think the plot is kind of predictable. In addition, this is not my first Thai series. I have watched Girl From Nowhere, and it can't be helped that unconsciously I compared both series. 

"Oh wait, that's similar with Girl From Nowhere", 

that's how I felt after watching the first episode of the series. Both use cause and effect plot lines, and the story's background is school life. The characters are also similar; it's between good characters vs bullies. Well, even though it is identical to another series, School Tales The Series still has its own color and is worth watching.

    What I like about this series is that it brings back old memories of old horror stories that we, as Indonesian, probably already heard in our school times. Indonesia and Thailand are neighboring countries. Obviously, both countries have many similar things, including horror tales in school. The first thing that came to my mind after watching the whole series is that, indeed, Indonesia and Thailand have similarities in the culture and horror stories around their school. For example, the 6th episode entitled Lunch reminds me of a Javanese story about pesugihan (black magic) on soto's house. The episode tells about a student who tries to prove that one of the food stalls in their school uses black magic to make their food delicious and get many customers. The phenomenon is similar to the pesugihan story in Indonesia.

    Another example is the horror story in an art room full of traditional music instruments. I think you have already heard that in your school, am I right? Another thing I like about this series is that it explicitly gives moral value to the audience. It teaches the audience about karma to the bullies or the bad guy, so there is something that the audience can easily absorb in the series. 

    Overall I would like to give a 5/10 rate for School Tales The Series. I'm not really enjoying the plot because usually, horror series or movies are able to build intense scenes where the audience can feel that. If you are looking for intense horror series, this series is not the place where you can get that. But, don't worry! This series is still worth watching and not a waste of your time. There is still an interesting aspect that can be enjoyed. I can say that this since the phenomenon that the series brings really reminds me of my school times and somehow it also introduced me to Thailand culture and their horror tales. Since it's not the type of heavy plot line series, you can watch it to relax and take a break from hills of assignments or work on the weekend. Happy watching!

Warning: before watching the series, please remember that it contains a lot of blood

Writer: Fitria Puji Utami

Editor: Amalia Prameswari