Whispering Corridors

'Whispering Corridors' is set in a South Korean all-girls high school, focusing on a senior class and four of its students. Although it's a horror film, Whispering Corridors seems to be a drama at heart. The school building is very atmospheric and eerie, and there's some spooky shots of long corridors and deserted classrooms. Along with that, we also explore the extremely competitive and harsh South Korean education system, identity and reputation, and the relationships between the four students and one teacher.

After the suicide of Mrs Park (or 'Old Fox' as she's known amongst the pupils), rumours begin circulating around the school about what caused her death. Girls fall out, and come together; there's a ghost who apparently haunts the old, disused art room, and people aren't who they first appear to be...

A thinking man's film indeed, this will have you scratching your head in some parts. Not a lot of blood, but some tense scenes of violence. A chilling atmosphere and setting endures throughout, the director certainly knows how to set a scene. He also gets the best of the cast, who are all exceptional. Mr Oh; aka Mad Dog, is a particular stand-out as a vile, abusive teacher. Altogether a very character and theme driven story, with interesting social commentary. If you like slow-burn, atmospheric, subtle horror, you'll like this.

P.S. There's an intriguing quote towards the end, where a character says "It didn't matter who I chose as long as I filled the seats." A comment on the emphasis upon status and reputation in the classroom, and thus, lack of identity? Or a jab at the thought that Asians look really similar? (At least to those from outside Asia.) Or both?

The look of the murky and desolate school corridors where sunlight cannot reach during the afternoon lessons had always given me the creeps. This movie was on the silver-screen while I was in Grade-10, in Turkey. My friends have gone to see it, yet they were so indisposed afterwards. However couple weeks before its screening, we've seen a Jennifer-Love Hewitt flick "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer" that was when we had finished that horror movie with belly laughs and roll in the aisles. I was curious to see and to know what was not to laugh of somebody's frightening of ghosts. Somehow, even though my friends were irritated of it, Whispering Corridors made a good box-office hit in Turkey. It must have inspired some serious masses, that in the first decade of 2000s' Turkish Horror-Suspense Fiction have used remarkable pieces from Whispering Corridors whether directly or indirectly. Then Taylan Brothers adapted a low-quality copycat from this already adapted adaptation. Making double adaptation for a piece of art didn't make sense on the payoff and the viewer felt it thoroughly. No one ever liked this adaptation; and it remained as a pathetic Turkish version: Okul(2004). That failure of Turkish cinema made me search for its origin. Yet till yesterday I hadn't have a chance to see this psycho-horror.

Now watching it for the first time after 10 years of its release, it's clear to realize that Horror is no Horror if there is no Psycho in it. Whispering Corridors is para-psychologically successful and realistic. People know in secret that these types of extra-ordinary and super-natural happenings do really occur in real life.

The story takes place on a country-side all-girl private school in South Korea, the year 1998. Presumably on a Sunday, the day before the new semester starts, the president of the teachers' committee of the school(Mrs.Parks) is getting killed right after the killer stole the 1993 and 1996 student yearbooks. We -the viewers- get 3 clues of the killer that she has the capitals P.C. from her desk, she commits her murders barefoot and she carefully leaves no evidence making the murders seem like suicides. After the semester starts, one of the male teachers of the school entrusts a class of girls with a task to hush up the rumours about the suicide among the students of the whole school. For this purpose, every week the committee of teachers choose "the clerk for the week" out of students of the same class. Meantime, there is a very strict racism storming in the air among the teachers for the student children of the Shaman families. A girl from the chosen class, whose mother is a Shaman priestess, begins getting affected while she used to call spirits to reveal the exam scores before they're announced or reveal whoever is virgin or not among her friends. That way, her friends always show respect to her, frightening of her but loving her at the same time. Soon, we get more clues about the murderer after she kills the night guard of the school. The murderer is very unpredictable, and the best thing is that each time when the mystery takes control on us trying to solve the murders; the murderer is getting killed. So, technically the spirits which curses the school and those students who are cursed-each time a new student- were the actual offenders. One by one girls of the chosen class lose their minds and in order to kill their victims they must trade their souls in with the spirits, so that the spirits can manipulate them kill their victims.

Technical aspects are very low due to the low budget. Even though the audio quality is considerable. To capture the actors' voices more clearly I don't think the film crew had a boom operator though. The tensioned atmosphere is the true accomplishment of the camera movements, some degree of lighting adjustments, camera locations and chosen angles. Storytelling is very ambitious that despite the editing is mediocre, still the film keeps its fluency. Only watch out for the last 20 minutes! It becomes a captivity of total paranoia.

While I was staring empty-minded at the closing credits, witnessed on how easy the deepest emotions of a human heart can destroy everything in one's life; I asked myself how in earth can someone make a movie like that so as to reveal what's unseen of the psychopathic murders. What a brave and hard job! What an amazing concept! If only it could have been produced more attractive to the viewer with a better screening quality, a better acting, a better screenplay, a better editing. The total commitment and self-belief of the production crew carries its importance to the highest standards; there we are taught how important the pre-production phase of a raw production material which was based on a very widely known and so told school rumour.

If producers who are only looking for gaining box-office receipts with a horror movie and they hesitate to scratch and scrabble the concept of the fear; then they cannot reflect the reality or it just remains unreasonable as a work of imagination. For Yeogo Goedam didn't fall into this trap, it's a must-see cult horror.

Whispering Corridors is a totally scary, and entertaining horror flick from Korea. It's easy to see why this was the first of an explosion of Asian Horror films like the Ring and the Grudge, because the director, Park Ki-Hyung is definitely well versed in American horror and uses his understanding of the genre to make the movie really appealing to any American horror fan. Whispering Corridors is the first in a trilogy of films. The first death in the movie and all of the rest are really reminiscent of the slashers like Friday the 13th and other late 70's early 80's American horror which are the staples of the genre. If you like horror films and have seen the best ones, you'll immediately see why this one fits right in to that group. What's really cool about it, is that there's no CG (computer generated effects). All of the blood and deaths etc. are all done with real actors, and it's almost more believable than the over-the-top current American horror genre. There's something so tangible about the blood in the film. It's bright red, and creeps the viewer out in a way that CG children running around (like in the Grudge) could never fully achieve.

The whole film takes place around an all girls school-- and with girls in uniforms and mysterious murders, you've got the makings of a great horror narrative. The first 20 minutes really suck you into the story as Ki-Hyung moves the camera much like 70's DePalma or Hitchcock--It's seductive. The school building becomes horrifying in and of itself. The way Ki-Hyung presents the school makes it like an evil edifice similar to the Overlook Hotel in Kubrick's The Shining.

The tone is similar to Rosemary's Baby in that the girls are consistently trying to figure out what the problem is-they want to get to the bottom of it, but the forces out of their control, i.e. the school teachers, get in their way, and they get in trouble. The grainy look of the film and the way the sound design/score are used is totally an homage to the classic horror films of the 70's. In the movie, the Korean school system is depicted as an evil force that represses the girls, abuses them, and ultimately is the motivating force that makes the one girl commit suicide and become the ghost who murders her enemies throughout the film. The performances by the girls are great. And the colors of the film are so dreary, that you can't help but feel like you're there. The end of the movie has a really amazing image of the two main girls alone in the classroom with blood pouring out of the walls and the ceiling. Overall, this film is really entertaining, and psychologically interesting, and will scare the crap out of you. The Tartan DVD release is pretty awesome. It has trailers for a lot of Asia Extreme films, 5.1 surround sound, photos, and English/Spanish subtitles.

In the haunting opening sequence, we witness the mysterious death of a teacher at a South Korean all girls school. She is discovered by her pupils (her hanging body is a nightmarish image that will tattoo itself on your memory), and their abusive principal tells them it was a suicide. Before she died, she telephoned her young coworker and told her that "Jin-Ju is here. She's still alive!" Baffled by this, the young teacher embarks on an investigation to figure out what exactly is going on at this school. She finds that the ultra-competitive students are not what they seem on the surface.

In its trailer, "Whispering Corridors" is credited as being the film that started the "Asian Horror Explosion." I'm not so sure about that, as Ringu is far better known and appears to have been released first. However, this truly is an excellent supernatural story that deserves as much recognition. While the movie leans heavily on drama and mystery, the frightening scenes are very effective. Those that take place in the long ominous hallways in the empty school at night, as well as in the condemned art studio, are incredibly creepy and atmospheric.

The performances by the entire cast, especially the young actresses, are excellent. Throughout the film, we are introduced to several of the repressed but competitive girls. There's the insecure nerdy girl who believes in magic, her best friend who is desperate to be popular and secretly wants to be an artist, the prettiest girl who is also at the top of the class, and the vicious-eyed girl who is second in rank and never utters a word. As the body count increases, the viewer is given several hints as to why each of these girls (as well as the violent and lecherous principal) could be a suspect.

The film culminates with a sappy sequence that will likely cause you to eyeroll through it is duration, but it is easy to forgive this melodrama after seeing the chilling final shot of the film. The chronology may be confusing for some (though it is much easier to follow than many Asian supernatural horrors!), but all the sideplots are nicely tied together in the final sequences. What makes "Whispering Corridors" especially interesting is its strong underlying message of solidarity above competition in young women. Not only was I surprised to find social commentary of this type successfully incorporated into a horror movie, but I was doubly astounded to find it in one from South Korea. Yet, the messages here are especially potent because they are universal. I wish this unique horror film could find a larger audience because it deserves to be seen by more people.

My Rating: 8/10

Whispering Corridors is a slow moving, but engrossing, ghost story set in an all-girl's school in Korea. There have been a number of Asian horror films released in the U.S. in the past few years, but as this one was made before most, I think of it more as a trend-setter than a copycat. While much of the horror is subtle and implied, there are moments where the horror slaps you in the face with some very vivid imagery. The rest of the story dealing with the relationships between the girls and the teachers is not the normal kind of thing I go for, yet here it's very well done. It doesn't seem as clichéd as most American films dealing with teens seem to be. The acting is top drawer and adds a lot to making the film work. I wish I could point out one or two of the performances that really stand out, but I don't speak Korean and all the names look alike to me.

Whispering Corridors probably wouldn't work for those not patient enough to allow the film to slowly unfold. And while I may not have enjoyed it as much as some of the more recent Asian offerings like A Tale of Two Sisters, it's an enjoyable enough experience.