English Dub Season Review: The Kirlian Frequency Season One


Passed along like a cursed bootleg smuggled out of forgotten festival, The Kirlian Frequency has had a spooky history of development. Originating in Argentina, the project was initially supposed to be a live action series, but never finished production and so was scrapped. Abandoned but still haunting its creators, the series mutated across mediums and concepts until, finally, it was released as a collection of shorts online, slowly gaining prominence like a spirt that was coming to possess those who watched it. Then, in 2019, it vanished from every outlet it previous inhabited, only being viewable on Netflix, where it has stayed until this very day…

As for the story, it’s a bit muddled. The shorts make up an anthology of sorts, all coming from broadcasts on a radio show set in the mysterious Kirlian and the show’s even more mysterious host. The minimal animation works towards creating a creepy atmosphere, as well as contributing towards making sure we never quite get a good look at Kirlian, only learning about its qualities through phone calls and recorded stories. How much of these stories are actually true is up for debate but it becomes clear from the very first episode that it’s not the kind of place that one can just visit. Assuming you can find it at all, as it’s apparently not on any maps. And we soon learn why, as each spooky tale unearths more stories of werewolves, vampiric mosquitos, witches, talking dogs, and who knows what else that lurks beneath the chipper radio host.

What’s both a blessing and a curse for this series is the runtime. Five shorts, each 8-10 minutes long, coming to less than an hour of content that one could breeze through on a lunch break (back when lunch breaks were something that you did when went to work). This does have the benefit of making the series more accessible, being shorter than even your average cheap horror movie. It also surprisingly does not hurt the pacing of each short, which flow pretty well from beginning to end and leave their intended mark of horror upon the viewer. Very good for watching late in the early morning and more than fitting for the creepy times we’re living in today.

While the last episode seems to promise a second season and the creators are still plenty interested, it’s not clear when we’ll be able to visit the town of Kirlian again any time soon. It’s been awhile since the first season was made and who knows how Netflix might influence the project when they have sole distribution over it. But something tells me that the creepy flare that have captured our spirits and stolen our sleep from us will likely be plenty present in the second season and beyond. If you have even the slightest fascination with horror, this is a must watch, though you might be craving more for a long time.