Nothing screams Halloween like a terrifying twist on a childhood favorite.
And that’s exactly what Netflix’s newest global phenomenon Squid Game is serving up, as the characters at the heart of the survival drama are tasked with playing games from their childhood—and die if they do not succeed. Case in point: A game of “Red Light, Green Light” proves to be particularly lethal, with more than half of the competitors dying in episode one.
So, how exactly did the characters—played by Lee Jung-jae, Park Hae-soo, Jung Ho-yeon, O Yeong-su, Heo Sung-tae and more—find themselves in this dystopian nightmare? “All of you in this room are living on the edge,” a masked man instructs the group early on, “with debts you cannot pay off.”
While the participants are told they can opt out of the experience, they are assured that billions will be awarded to the winner. Intrigued? Well, you’re not the only one, as Squid Game is well on its way to break the streaming record previously held by Bridgerton. (For those who need a refresher, 82 million households watched the Shonda Rhimes-produced period drama in its first month on Netflix.)