More horror tales are rising from the set of Squid Game: The Challenge, Netflix’s forthcoming actuality competitors based mostly on its world hit Squid Game.
Previously, The Sun reported that on-set medics had swung into motion after contestants needed to maintain statue-like poses for almost half-hour in a freezing airplane hangar. Now Variety has first-hand accounts from former contestants.
Per Variety, a sport of “Red Light, Green Light” filmed in freezing situations in a former Royal Air Force hangar in Bedford, England, on January 23 and culled round half of the fact competitors’s 456 contestants — and the sport took among the contestants almost seven hours to movie. Additionally, Variety experiences, among the contestants collapsed in the course of the filming of that sport.
“This is not a Bear Grylls survival show,” one contestant, anonymized with the faux identify John, advised the journal. “If they had told us it was going to be that cold, no one would have gone through with it.”
Another contestant, known as Marlene, mentioned that she didn’t see anybody carried away through stretcher, as had been beforehand reported within the media. “But it’s definitely not as minimal as is being conveyed by Netflix,” she added. “It’s not like we signed up for Survivor or Naked and Afraid,” she mentioned. “The conditions were absolutely inhumane and had nothing to do with the game.”
Marlene additionally mentioned that the contestants have been advised that they’d must freeze for 2 minutes when the music stopped throughout that sport — however later discovered herself holding the identical frozen place for 10 minutes, then quarter-hour, then 26 minutes, by her depend.
“The second time the song played, I saw in my left peripheral vision that this girl was swaying. Then she just buckled, and you could hear her head actually hit the ground,” Marlene mentioned. “But then someone came on the [microphone] and said to hold our positions because the game is not paused. After that, people were dropping like flies.” (Marlene additionally estimated that medics have been referred to as to the set 11 instances, a determine that sources near manufacturing denied to Variety.)
“I’m infuriated by the narrative that Netflix is putting out there, that only [a few] people were injured…we were all injured just by going through that experience,” mentioned a 3rd contestant, known as Jenny, advised Variety.
“I’ve never been that cold for that long a period in my life. We couldn’t feel our feet or our toes. It was ridiculous. Take some responsibility for the fact that you were ill-prepared for this kind of thing, with this number of people,” Jenny added, tearfully.
Meanwhile, nameless contestants advised Rolling Stone that the sport was rigged. “It was just the cruelest, meanest thing I’ve ever been through,” one mentioned. “We were a human horse race, and they were treating us like horses out in the cold racing and [the race] was fixed.”
In an announcement to Variety, Netflix and manufacturing corporations Studio Lambert and The Garden mentioned, “We care deeply about the health of our cast and crew, and the quality of this show. Any suggestion that the competition is rigged or claims of serious harm to players are simply untrue. We’ve taken all the appropriate safety precautions, including aftercare for contestants — and an independent adjudicator is overseeing each game to ensure it’s fair to everyone.”