Whispering Corridors Guide
It’s been three months since the kick-off of the Korean Summer Horror celebration and like all good things, it must come to an end. What better way to celebrate than focus on the franchise that l started this on - Whispering Corridors. This post will be part review, part ranking, and bit of extra bits and pieces of trivia about the series to help give you a rundown of the series itself and how I enjoyed it.
Background
The Whispering Corridors series started with the first film on May 30, 1998, where it became a surprise hit ranking third domestically in box offices that year. The film went on to produce five more spin-offs, the fifth, The Humming, releasing on June 17 of this year. While each of the movies focuses on a completely different story and are independent of each other, they do share some similar traits. All of the movies are set in all-girl high schools, and the main focus is on the students. They highlight specific problems that are known in the Korean school systems such as abusive parents/teachers, teen pregnancy, bullying, suicide, and over the top competition. They also showcase the relationships between the girls, both in friendship and heavily romantic undertones. None of the films share any other characters or story lines however the sixth film does seem to have a possible small tie to the early movies in the franchise (as it is officially labeled as a reboot). At the time of this post, I have not watched it nor is it accessible for International audiences (and thus, will not be included in this ranking).
The list of movies, in order that they premiered:
Whispering Corridors 1 (May 30, 1998)
Whispering Corridors 2: Momento Mori (December 24, 1999)
Whispering Corridors 3: Wishing Stairs (August 1, 2003)
Whispering Corridors 4: Voice (July 15, 2005)
Whispering Corridors 5: A Blood Pledge - Broken Promise (June 18, 2009)
Whispering Corridors 6: The Humming (June 17, 2021)
Reviews and Ranking
*While I won’t be going into extreme detail in my reviews and synopsis, I might dive a bit deeper into spoiler territory for these. This is your warning.
#5: A Blood Pledge
Written and Directed by Lee Jong Yong. Starring Oh Yeon Seo, Son Eun Seo, Kang Byul, and Song Min Jung.
Coming in at last place is the fifth movie, A Blood Pledge. Set in an all-girls Catholic boarding school it follows the suicide of one of the students. Her and three other girls form a pact to commit suicide and sign a blood pledge that if anyone survives they will be haunted for the rest of their lives. The story sets forth the aftermath of her death, and her constant haunting to showcase the true story of the pledge and what led them to consider suicide.
Out of all the other movies, this one took a bit of a different path and combined weird deaths and random gore into the story line to play up the scares, unlike the other movies where it was bit more into the unknown and slow burns. It was also the campiest out of all of them, and felt that the acting and the script were lacking. Because of all this, I was not interested in the story nor the characters and in the end the story’s resolve wasn’t interesting enough for me.
Notes: This is the first of the movies to be set at a specific religious institution and the first one to talk about teen pregnancy. It is also the second to show a male relationship, but the first to show a relationship outside of the school.
#4: Voice
Written by Choi Ik Hwan Seol and Joon Seok. Written by Choi Ik Hwan. Starring Seo Ji Hye, Kim Ok Bin.
Voice follows the death of a voice student who haunts the school not knowing what happened. She can only being heard by her friend, Sun Min, who tries to uncover what happened to her.
I personally felt that Voice was lacking in depth and story, specifically for a horror film. The story mostly felt that of a detective story between the two friends, and the reveal was lack luster and kind of messy. It was the most boring out of the series for me, and I came out of it with no real impact. While her death was the creepy, I didn’t feel we spent enough time with who was the murderer and the relationship between the two for the pay off, and the way she died felt like it needed much more paranormal justification (as it was an impossible death for a person to do). While not a terrible film all-in-all, those short comings led to a lower rating for me. The movie also felt like it was the first shift in the series to break away from the original motif, and started to stray away from things that were grounded in subjects that were present in the real lives of a student, a theme I enjoyed in the series.
Notes: While Kim Seo Hyung stars as a voice teacher in this movie, her role in The Humming is not a reprisal and unrelated. While this carries over the arts concentration from the last film (Wishing Stairs), they have no ties to each other either.
#3: Wishing Stairs
Directed by Yun Jae Yeon. Written by Kim Soo Ah. Starring Song Ji Hyo, Park Han Byul and Jo An.
Jin Sung and So Hee are friends at a ballet school when a competition for an international spot leads to their relationship to be strained. Jin Sung finds out about the Wishing Stairs, a set of stairs on campus that will grant a wish and wishes for something that leads to great consequences.
While Wishing Stairs didn’t have as great of an impact as the top two on this list, and realistically it’s not the best, I did enjoy a lot more than the other films. I think it kept up well with the main plot points of the previous two, and personally felt the betrayal of friendship because of a competition was a good plot to take and was a bit more centered in what students could relate to, especially with it being a close friend. The character of Hye Joo is a little hard to handle, as I’m sensitive to any portrayals of overweight characters, but felt that in the grand scope of Asian entertainment, it probably was the best representation we were going to get from her. The main characters both interacted with her, but they never shared an distain for her because of her weight, and I really appreciated that. Wishing Stairs also kept up the motif of their being a legend or unknown on campus (with the stairs) that leaves the series after this.
Notes: This is the first of the films to be set in a boarding school, and one that was for a specific concentration (arts). Wikipedia suggests that the story follows closely to the ballet, Giselle.
#2: Whispering Corridors
Directed by Park Ki Hyung. Written by In Jung Ok and Park Ki Hyung. Starring Kim Gyu Ri, Lee Mi Yeon, Choi Kang Hee, Yoon Ji Hye, and Park Jin Hee.
Set at an all-girls school that’s said to be haunted by a former student who committed suicide there, Whispering Corridors follows the students and faculty after a teacher is found dead at the school and the rumors that start to spread about what happened.
I have full review of the movie already up the on the site, which you can find here. This movie came in second on the list not because I don’t generally really like the movie. I really enjoy the atmosphere and the slow build of the reveals of what was going on at the school and found that out of all the movies, this is probably more closely tied to what students, especially females, face in school which I’ve talked about previously in this post being a huge selling point for me. I really respect what the movie did, and it’s a movie I highly suggest watching.
Notes: With it being one of the first horror films to be produced after the 90’s lift on film regulations, it had to be produced cheaply. The entire production only cost $600.000 (USD) to make. In 2015 it was announced that there would be a Chinese remake of the series, co-produced with original production house, Cine2000.
#1: Momento Mori
Written and Directed by Kim Tae Yong and Min Kyu Dong. Starring Park Ye Jin, Kim Gyu Ri, and Lee Young Jin.
High school students Si Eun and Hyo Shin become romantically involved and the relationship causes them to be bullied by the rest of the students. Soh Min Ah finds the journal the girls share, which reveals the story behind their relationship.
Momento Mori takes a different approach in its story telling as the story is shown not only real time, but as Min Ah reads the journal and is connected to the two’s relationship and story. It jumps pretty quickly between what is going on and Si Eun and Hyo Shin’s past that creates some confusion with the story, but also directly mirrors the chaotic relationship of the two. Not just in their ‘taboo’ relationship, but also the relationship of teen’s first love: confusing, over the top, and a whirlwind of emotions in a short time. While all the movies have ghosts, this one feels the most paranormal because of the way the book almost overtakes Min Ah and becomes a living thing, and the crazy explosion of it all at the end. It takes the number one spot because I thought the use of those elements, even in their overdone way, convey what high school is like in teenagers and overall became a more entertaining movie and my favorite of the five.
Notes: Momento Mori was one of the first Korean commercial teen films to depict lesbian characters. This is also the only film to depict a male/student relationship, as most of the movies teachers are more physically abusive or just not present at all.
While the series does have its flaws, I found it mostly enjoyable and a must see for any Asian horror fan.
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