Stream It Or Skip It: ‘School Tales The Series’ On Netflix, A Thai Horror Series That Tells Bloody Tales At Different Schools

School Tales The Series is an anthology horror series based on a popular comic; different directors take on scary stories of blood and terror at various schools in Thailand. Think kids in uniforms, people hanging at lockers, and at least one kid who’s being ostracized for being the slightest bit weird.

SCHOOL TALES THE SERIES: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A teenager standing in the courtyard of a school. “Someone once said that life is like the hands of a clock,” says a voice over. “They always come back to the same spot, repeating the same movements over and over.”

The Gist: The first episode, “7 AM,” involves a classroom whose students believe is cursed. The legend goes: A book for a particular class is written on the chalkboard every morning at 7 AM. If someone doesn’t have the book when class starts at 8 AM, the “ghosts” that haunt the classroom will kill that person. That person will be erased from everyone’s memory, as well. We see this when a student named Wittaya (Ratchanon Aungsiriswat) forgets a book and pays the price. He’s still on the class list but no one knows who he is the next day.

For some reason or another, a student named Q (Kay Lertsittichai) has been tasked with being in the room at 7 to take a picture of the board and put it in a class text chain. But Q is tired of being under the thumb of the rest of the students, demanding that he report to them at 7 so they can plan what to bring. Especially obnoxious classmates are Vaan (Chanwut Kwanmongkolcharden) and Not (Nutchapan Paramacharoenroj). The only one defending him is Tan (Panisara Rikulsurakan),.

Q is also haunted by the ghost (Pemika Ratsameechawalit), but for some reason, she doesn’t kill him. The more pressure he feels from his classmates, the less he’s inclined to help them. It comes to a head when a student named Auan (Wichai Saefant) accuses the others of stealing his math book.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Think American Horror Stories, but with stories that take place in various schools.

Our Take: Horror anthologies can tell pretty scary stories, even when the filmmakers only have an episode’s worth of time to tell those stories. But where they generally suffer is with lack of details. That’s what we saw with School Tales The Series, and that lack of detail was enough to hamper the stories for us.

The “7 AM” episode doesn’t really explain a whole heck of a lot. We know that Q is the son of a corrupt politician, but we’re not sure why he was designated as the person who would read the board at 7 AM and send it to the rest of the class. We have no idea why he’s being haunted by the ghost. And we also have no idea why Tan is the only one defending him. Does she like him? Is she using him?

So if the story is going to be lacking in details there should be good scares. The scares in the first episode are mild at best, hampered by what seems to be a limited budget. We’d like to say that the episode gave insight into the human condition, but that’s not something we can say with any confidence, since whatever message director James Thanadol was trying to convey was lost when the details were sliced out of the story.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: We hear a news report about killings in that classroom, revealing what might actually have happened.

Sleeper Star: None.

Most Pilot-y Line: “Are you screwing him?” Not asks Tan about Q. Interesting that the word “fuck” is used elsewhere in the episode but not with regards to actual sex.

Our Call: SKIP IT. School Tales The Series needs some better stories to justify the lack of scares, or better scares to justify the lack of story.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.