WHISPERING CORRIDORS

Made in 1998 before the Asian invasion of spectral longhaired ghosts and cursed videotapes were all the rage of the Hollywood remake machine, a little, independently made Korean film crept onto the cinematic scene. Evoking horror with a whisper, titillating with implied terror rather than crass shocks, Whispering Corridors delivers truly disturbing, heart-wrenching scares amidst a socially relevant backdrop of cultural pressure, alienation, and the all-too-common miseries of adolescence. A poetic and emotionally scathing bastard child residing somewhere between the contemporary 'slasher' and its violent hysterics and the atmospheric tradition of the classic ghost story, this vivisection of scholastic agony, surprising brutality, and introspective characterization is unfailingly entertaining and as rooted in the intimate tragedies of everyday living as the fantastical.

The setting: Jookran High School, with a staff and community which demands its students sacrifice personal happiness for both academic success and conformity. Beneath its mock respectability and electric-lit world of manners, corrupted social politics makes the lives of its outsiders hell. Locked in a struggle of power, this film beautifully captures the soul-crushing struggle between institutions and the individual. More importantly, these external conflicts -- mirroring the battles that each of us one time or another have endured -- both disguise and add additional resonance to the darker secrets hidden beneath the school's structural and moral sense of order. A malignant past whispers secrets of guilt, crime, and culpability in Whispering Corridors, ready to explode into a horrible fury both fascinating and frightening.

Following the structure of ghost fiction, wherein horrid mysteries of the past are responsible for crippling the future, the plot's dark heart is located in the sins of history. This story is especially effective as a statement of how the malignant, unforgiving past refuses to stay buried, and the power which it extols over largely innocent children. Like fate, time is almost a physical force herein, not simply a scientific concept. Guilt, too, is examined in this hair-raising drama of self discovery. When Mrs. Park, the teacher of room 3-3 (known as "Old fox") is found hanging in the school's overpass, the resulting supernatural fear is heightened by the familiar tyranny of a system that forces its students to remain silent about their anxieties. Three girls in particular must confront supernatural terror and the weakness of their psyches. Shy Youn Jae-yi (Choi Se-yeon), outgoing artist Lim Ji-oh (Kim Gyu-ri), and lonely outsider Kim Jung-sook (Jun Ji-hye) discover a horrible mystery that will effect them each differently. As Ji-oh's supernatural sensitivity convinces her to contact the other side, she becomes a target for Mr.Oh (known as Mad Dog), who happens to have a fondness for young girls. Meanwhile, the arrival of Eun-young, a new teacher, sparks a private investigation into the school's dark past, which involves her deceased friend Jin-ju. The focus of the story shifts into more occult territory as Eun-young notices some of her dead friend's traits in the other students . . .

Translated as "High School Ghost Story," this occult thriller signifies beyond its emphasis of scholastic pressures and prejudice souls who are refused access into the next world as a result of having been violently killed. Framing this dark kernel amidst the politically charged context of a girl's high school, this movie combines ancient folklore with the contemporary anxieties of school-life, guaranteeing the interest of adolescents. Thankfully, the story, style of direction, atmosphere, and setting are engaging enough to draw the interest of older audiences. This ménage of Korean high school angst and graveyard nightmares struck a powerful chord in its young audience, turning the film into an instant box-office success. The first feature film by director Park Ki-Hyung, Whispering Corridors is as much a social criticism of Korean society as it is a skin-crawling horror show.

Attacked by controversy and criticism when it was released, the depiction of a female school filled with sexual abuse, neglect, and violence is every bit as disturbing as the supernatural terror on display. Working on a social-political level, this movie is a slice of elegant exploitation, combining moodily photographed terrors with such introspective themes as self sacrifice and the nature of friendship. A taunt script and fine performances also help make this exhilarating dreamscape a timely, relevant, boldly nightmarish drama. A surprisingly morose, bleak undertone coats this work, a mood which continues to haunt audiences long after the initial mystery is solved.

Tartan offer this Ki-Yung Park production in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio (enhanced for 16x9). Image clarity is proficient if not as clean as other Tartan films, occasionally grainy and soft. DTS and 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks do their job well, including optional English and Spanish subtitles. A still gallery and trailers are the only extras, which is shame considering the film's quality.

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The follow-up to Whispering Corridors, Memento Mori was released in 1999. A sequel in general tone, atmosphere, and theme if not in direct progression of storyline, Memento Mori (Yeogo Goedam 2) is interesting for its different stylistic take on similar themes of social prejudice and coming of age. In short, this disturbing entry in the loosely connected series achieves its own identity. While not as sensitive, frightening, or taboo-breaking as the first film, Momento Mori boasts a unique voice and non-traditional approach to the horrific, grounded deeper in the reality of emotional bonds than in crass 'spook' horrors. Of course the most obvious differences are found in the story itself. Wherein Whispering Corridors opted to depict an inhumane Korean school system devoted to the abuse of authority as both its atmospheric setting and as a central plot-line, Directors Kim Tae-yong and Min Kyu-dong here interweave their occult nightmares within the context of a teenage lesbian relationship.

A major thematic characteristic of this film, and perhaps its most shattering, is the unreasoning hatred that such relationships provoke from the status quo. This is embodied in the cultural mechanisms of both the school's students and staff, whose malicious intent towards the two young lovers mirror the later supernatural anger of the dead towards the living. Exploiting the fear that a large section of Korean society has concerning homosexuality, the directors take a cue from the late great Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame and wrap essential social criticism in the symbolic language of the fantastic. The story is just as much a tender, emotionally provocative romance between two young girls entering the delirious borders of innocent sexuality. Both the social drama of characters and the haunting details of a surprisingly effective supernatural menace are achieved through suggestion. Elements of both the uncanny and earthy work together, forming a vortex of suspense and empathy.

The plot, while not as complex or satiric as the first entry, is more successful as an exploration of individual characters, particularly in its sensitive handling of a complex relationship. Not a simple exploitation film by any means, the plot features Min-ah (Min-sun Kim), who accidentally discovers the secret journal of two of her classmates. She discovers that Shi-eun (Young-jin Lee), a girl in her class, has romantic feelings for Hyo-shin (Yeh-jin Park), a senior student. The crux of the action is revealed through the erotological device of the aforementioned diary, which follows the development of the lesbian relationship. When the affair sours, and one of the girls commits suicide, Min-ah finds herself haunted by both an internal sense of guilt and the girls' spectre. As supernatural horror surrounds the school, Min-ah races to uncover a mystery which surrounds the girl's death. A mystery upon which her life and sanity may hang, if not her very soul.

Whereas Whispering Corridors revealed its secrets through flashbacks, Memento Mori defies the traditional insistence on linier plot development. Told in a consciously non-sequential manner, the fragmented form mirrors the confusion, internal chaos, and terror of the story, furthering as well our feelings of isolation and tension. The ghost story aspect is less pronounced than the pain of the girls. Belonging neither to the realm of the supernatural nor the geography of everyday banality, this film occupies a place between. Believable acting, bizarre imagery, and dreamlike pacing establish mood with authority. Layering the supernatural with starkly realistic social situations, the more imaginative terrors are anchored by the recognizable conflicts between parental authority and children, as well as the intolerance of one's peers. Whereas traditional supernatural stories first establish a context of everyday reality which invites audience to suspend disbelief, inviting empathy with characters before allowing occult elements to subtly intrude, Memento Mori subverts the nature of 'reality' from within.

Crossing taboos of relationships with both intelligence and sensitivity, Memento Mori is a dissection of emotional stability, romantic breakdown, and the unceasing conflict between culture and gender. Darkly beautiful and, at times, painful to watch, the film embraces the essence of tragedy. The story follows its dark thematic threads to haunting conclusion. Focusing on the alienated, the lost, and the desperate, these recognizable outcasts whose non-traditional feelings for one another further alienates them are as victimized by self-doubt\ and betrayals of the heart as by members of the status quo. Of more obvious interest for the ghost story fan is the film's glimpses of a lurking Otherworld which makes itself known through extensions of everyday stress. Told with a poetic voice, shot with an eye for detail, and packing emotional heartache in tantalizing scenes between the principle cast, this bold take on Asian attitudes towards homosexual love -- and its social consequences -- is a ghost story second and a searing drama first.

As effective as the supernatural tension is, particularly in scenes where it intrudes without immediate notice, lingering like shadows, the real danger in this film -- and certainly the most effective -- is Love. Stripped down of its mock positivism, this emotion is revealed as a deadly power capable of sucking the life out of heart and soul. Love is as frightening as any of the supernatural manifestations, and twice as cruel. It is certainly the principle threat to these young women, revealed as a bleeding gash in the psyche, propelling each character to act. Overpowering, deadly, and, in the end, unconquerable, love haunts these characters with frightening malignance. This sore spot of the in-human condition, and the serious treatment it receives in the shattering script, is only surpassed by the cruelty of the school setting.

Taking a cue from Whispering Corridors, the political and social structure of the school is a principle component, focusing not so much on the abusive tactics of the teachers (although they are certainly cruel) but the influence that peers exert over one another, particularly when 'outsiders' are hounded by the majority. These girls, stupid and banal as only such representatives of the status quo can be, shatter any hope of peace that Hyo-shin and Shi-eun could hope for. When Hyo-shin defends herself from the bullying tactics of the 'popular' girls, she is attacked with savage hatred. In a cycle of self-perpetrating cruelty, students treat each other with the same sort of emotional and physical abuse that they receive from their teachers. Lingering, painful psychological wounds haunt these academic halls alongside more traditional specters, evoked by the cruel injustice of the cultural hierarchy.

Amidst all of this abuse and cruelty, it would have been easy for the director to focus on the more sensational and erotic aspects of a lesbian relationship. To his credit, and the film's success, he captures the emotional dependency and longing of the girls' love, treating both them with respect and taste. The relationship between Hyo-shin and Shi-eun is quite touching, even childlike in its trusting simplicity. Rather than the expected breast fondling we see hand-holding and hugging. This approach exchanges crass sensationalism for empathy. As a result of this devotion to realism, the politics of emotion, and social relationships, the supernatural terrors, when they appear, are twice as effective. A presence, the spirit of Hyo-shin unnerves precisely because her anger bleeds through the atmosphere. She represents our primal fear of the unknown as her victims learn to mistrust their senses. As such, she is more frightening.

A company clearly devoted to quality, treating its rescued films of elegant fear with obvious love, Memento Mori is captured in 1.78:1 with clearly defined background and foregrounds, lush colors, and proper skin tones. Clarity is the word here, mirrored in the quality of the Audio, which is available in either Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1. The dialogue is clear, distinct from the evocative soundtrack. Extras are disappointingly scant for such a provocative feature. These consist of a routine "Behind-the-Scenes featurette and trailers for other recent Tartan Asia Extreme titles. Thankfully the film is such an intelligent and atmospheric ballet of tragic supernatural revenge, that you won't lament the lack of extras for very long, captivated by they moon-lit spell of its resonance.

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Reflecting the universal terrors of culture and the intimate anxieties of the individual, the ghost story has long scared and challenged audiences with its exploration of not only death and the afterlife but its ability to question the heart of existence with its spectral examinations of the complexities of the shadowy human heart. Whispering Stairs, the third chapter of the "School Girl Trilogy' began by the superb Whispering Corridors, continues this traditional examination of the otherworldly in a format devoted to adolescent angst, drama, and Search-for-Self.

A modern fear fable of re-imagined occult conflict, menacing magic, and the supernatural, this admittedly hormonal horror movie is just as focused on questions of peer pressure, the isolating effect of rumor, and the conflict between tragic pasts and haunted presents. In a story that challenges our concepts of everyday existence, the spectral, and perception, Wishing Stairs manages to appeal to the over-emotional hysterics of adolescent culture while satisfying the more sophisticated narrative demands evoked by its two predecessors.

Again supernatural horrors are lent further resonance and occasionally outshone by the cruelty, competition, and isolating favoritism that haunts schools no less than spirits. While the other two films in the series dealt with abusive teachers, taboo relationships, and ghosts responding to the guilt of restless personalities, this entry studies the destructiveness of competition as it tears apart two friends and darkens the atmosphere of yet another school environment. While not as emotionally effective or visually stunning as its siblings, Wishing Stairs is frightening. Layering its scant but effectively placed supernatural jolts in the heart-wrenching, unapologetic melodramatic conflicts of school girls, this story lends believability and to the fantastical by rooting it in the dark heart of everyday experience. Common everyday pain -- the intimate, seemingly simplistic turmoil of trivial yet soul darkening pain -- and its gradual chipping away of the self is the principle tool by which this film gets beneath your skin. As deliciously evocative, as these moments are, they can't compare to the internal violence of the banal and sickening moments of an everyday life seeped in competition.

It is whispered in school that if one walks up the stairs outside the girls' dormitory, counting each of 28 steps, on occasion a spectral 29th step will appear. If you ask 'the fox' to grant your deepest wish, it may come true. However, just as is often the case in all traditional folk mythology, tampering with fate invites dangerous consequences, and the very thing you want most may be the source of your darkest nightmares -- something that the sympathetically played Jin-sung wouldn't normally believe. Told this urban legend by Hae-ju (An Jo), a girl in her class who miraculously lost the fat that once ostracized her from her classmates, Jin-sung casts away loyalty to friendship in order to pursue external glory. Competing with the friend So-hee over a ballet audition, Jin-sung realizes that the other girl is more talented. Tired of playing a secondary role, Jin-sung determines to use the stairs as a means of winning. Propelled by jealousy and the desire to become her teacher's favorite pupil, she tells the Fox Spirit: "Let me go to the competition." Listening to the heart behind the words rather than the words themselves, this spirit gives Jin-sung gets exactly what she wanted (but had neither the honesty or daring to admit). When her friend soon dies, Jin-sung's world turns upside down, bathed in a nightmarish shadow of self-doubt, guilt, and occult fury. Because these characters are treated as real people with believable histories and motivations, the tragic horror reaches home.

Combining the traditional, cosmic archetypes of folklore with relevant social issues, the filmmakers behind Wishing Stairs offer a story that succeeds on both a surface, literal level as well as on an allegorical plane. Finding new faces for timeless fears of guilt and insecurity, both the occult and the dirtily human aspects of this fable support one another. Using at its core a legend revolving around a magical staircase, the movie operates on the slowed-down dream logic while casting our sympathies in the painful recriminations of the everyday.

Achieving unease through carefully constructed moments of pathos and dread, this sensitive re-imagining of traditional Asian horror reflects in the lens of the unknown an everyday world just as terrifying in its search for compassion as the eternal reoccurrence of damnation. Devoting an admirable amount of effort on characterization, the story plays with our concepts of time, space, and perception, changing the rules just when we think we've discovered the fundamental elements which energize this story of Karma and redemption. Presenting us a deliciously demented spirit world parallel to our own, casting doubt on our intentions, and exploring characters who don't truly know themselves (or what they are capable of), Wishing Stairs is intelligent terror of the highest order.

Tartan's Asia Extreme treats Wishing Stairs with care and respect. Images sport no noticeable grain, while depth is accurately conveyed in backgrounds; colors are rich and bright, and the subtitles read like honest-to-god dialogue, not the fragmented speech we so often find in Asian releases. Extras include a "making of" featurette, interviews with cast and crew, still galleries, and the expected slew of trailers.

Review by William P. Simmons