Tuesday 23 September 2014

A Blood Pledge

Title - A Blood Pledge (whispering Corridor 5, Ghost school 5)
Language - Korean 
Genre - Horror, Ghost
















 A Blood Pledge is the 5th film in the Whispering corridor’s / Ghost school series.
This time the film is set in a catholic girls school and follows 4 main protagonists:



Eun-Young
Soy
Unjoo
Lee - Eugene



and a fifth character, Jung-Un who is Unjoo’s sister.  These are the names of the characters as they appeared on the subtitles on the version i was watching but when i have looked on IMDB and Wikipedia some of the names are different, in fact the names are different on Wikki to IMDB so I’ll keep using the names from the DVD.



The film starts with Eun-Young, Soy & Eugene making a suicide blood pact saying they will all kill themselves and, if one doesn’t go through with it then they will be cursed with death.  The ceremony is interrupted by a knock on the door and we later find out this is Unjoo who joins the pact.  Unjoo is the only one of the girls who goes through with the suicide.  Unjoo’s sister is waiting for her and is the only witness to  Unjoo’s death.



Rumours start going around the school about Unjoo jumping because she was pregnant (which it turns out she wasn’t) and the other girls were present when she jumped.  Eugene, who is the leader of the girls first denies any of their presents but eventually tells people that Soy was there.  People start to believe that soy had more to do with the suicide, a point which seem to made more true by Eun-Young’s increasingly strange behaviour.
As the film progresses we learn that Soy & Unjoo used to be inseparable friends but Unjoo became friends with Eugene and was accepted into her friendship group.  Eugene only let Unjoo join them because she was trying to get her away from Eun-Young because soy was now dating Ki-Ho who was Eugene’s ex.  To make matters worst Soy was the one who was pregnant with Ki-Ho’s baby.  as the film continues Unjoo’s ghost stalks the corridors making the blood pact come true.



Out of the 5 films I found that ‘A Blood Pact’ was one of the easiest to watch.  The story was told in a mostly linear fashion with any flashbacks made more obvious.  I think that the setting of a Catholic school also helped as some of the symbolism and references are present in western culture.



A Blood Pact has some of the themes that run through all of the Ghost school films but, instead of focusing on the relationship between to of the pupils it took a small group and looked at how one incident (Soy’s relationship with Ki-Ho) could change the dynamics of it.  The group is also used to power, Eugene tries to use the suicide pact to get revenge on Soy, planning with Eun-Young that they don’t jump.  Even when the plan goes wrong and Unjoo dies Eugene tries to take control of the situation by firstly letting the class know that Soy was on the roof with Unjoo and then later by trying to fake Soy’s suicide.
A Blood Pledge is more like a modern ghost story than the other films, it still has the same feel as the other films but the ghost effects are are more gory but, like the others it does not go for the horror as much as the story

A Blood Pledge is a strong film with good characters and a strong story and well worth a watch.  

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