Ghost School / Whispering Corridor's overview

I have recently watched and review the 5 films that make up the Whispering Corridors/ghost School series of films  and thought that i might also look at the series as a whole.

The series consists of 5 films (at the time or writing), these are:

1 Whispering Corridors

2 memento Mori

3 Wishing Stairs

4 Voice

5 A Blood Pledge

The 5 films come from Korea are separate stories with different characters and can be watched in any order but, they are connected by certain themes and plots;

All the films are are set in an all girls school, it is never said whether it is meant to be the same school but it does look like the same buildings are used in some of the films.  The girls in Whispering Corridors walk past the steps that are used in Wishing Stairs.

There is always at least one ghost but the reason for the hauntings and how the ghost appears differs.

The main protagonist are a group of two or three girls normally with one other who wants to join the group or be friends with one of the other girls.

The narrative of the films focus more on the relationships of the living girls than the ghost.  Even ‘Voice’ which starts by having one of the main characters killed off and trying to work with her friend to find out what happened ends up focusing on the living lead and a new friend.  As part of the focus on the character's relationships  we see that there is always two of the girls who have a close relationship some of whom can been seen to lovers.  These relationships often play a  big part in the focus of the narrative and, even though i can’t think of a part in any of the films where it is shown/stated that any of girls are lovers there are often rumours going around the classes and it is often these rumours that act as a catalyst in the films.  Most of the time the effects of the rumours are bad, they either drive a wedge between the girls or lead to one of them being ostracised from the class or group.  In ‘A Blood Pact’ the rumour is spread about one of the girls being pregnant and even though the rumour turns out not to be true (or at least about the wrong girl) it is still shown to cause grief and problems for the girl.

One thing that stood out to me about the handling of the relationships is that they were done well.  Some of the girls have very close relationships and it would have been very easy to show this with some kind of physical device like kissing or even sex.  Unlike some movie's I don’t think the inclusion of a sex scene would have done these films any damage but the fact that the relationships are shown to be so strong with one is a good thing and even when a relationship does get physical it is always as part of the story and, again nothing is ever shown and only referenced when needed.

The films don’t shy away from things like bullying and abuse and the different films it can take and the feel of these seems to change as the films go one.  In the first two films there are abusive male teachers one of whom has a relationship with one of the girls but the later films have less of this.  I’m not sure if this was something that used to happen and has been phased out as attitudes changed in the real world but it does seem to be something that may have influenced the earlier films.   The abuse of the girls is not solely down to the male teachers.  In ‘A Blood Pledge’ we have one of the girls beaten by her dad because he thinks she is worthless. In ‘Wishing stairs’ one of the things shown is a mother pushing her daughter into something she doesn’t want to do (Ballet) because she never had the chance to do it when she was younger and in ‘Memento Mori’ a friendship is broken up by a teacher because one girl could do better but is being held back because her friend is different.

The films also show bullying, normally caused by the main characters classmates when they see that one of the main cast is different.  normally because of how close two of the girls are but also if one of the girls is seen to be different like in Memento Mori.  In ‘A Blood Pledge’ we also see one girl picking on the others in the group because she is weaker and how the whole pledge is set up just to get rid of one rival.

The ghosts are more than just a your normal horror villains.  They are rounded characters who, in some cases were members of the main group when they were alive.  They differ from ghosts in other movies because they are not just revenge driven.  It’s true that some of them are out for revenge but there are other motivations as well.  The films do not necessarily go for the big scares although the ghosts can be scarey.  The films play on some of the tropes for instance there is a scene in ‘Wishing Stair’ where one of the girls climbs through a window, she is on all fours with her hair over her face, the scene is reminiscent of Sadako coming through the T.V. in ‘The Ring’.  The ghosts intentions are not always evil but their presents causes problems and their methods are not always the normal way.  Some of the behavior of ghosts is explained in ‘Voice’.

The interesting thing about the ghost, especially in the first 3 films is that they are not always necessary as a lot of the ghosts  action  is phycological.  I did read (but not verified) that the ghost in ‘Memento Mori) was never meant to be seen and was only put in because it was felt that people would not like a ghost film with no ghost in it.

The Ghost School films are good but I did have a problem with them and that is that they are not linea.  This is especially true of Memento Mori and Voice.  Memento mori is told via a lot of flashbacks but i found that it was hard to tell when the flashbacks were happening.  The voice is split into 4 days but the days are not shown in order and are also separated by the credits running.

The Whispering Corridor / Ghost school films are a good set of films that tell emotional tales and also feature ghosts.  The stories are well thought out even if a couple of them seem to come across a bit jumbled due to their non linear nature.  The are not played just for scares but, in the context of the film it’s not necessary.  The films don’t go over the top on the gore but again this is not necessary, if there is a need for blood than there is blood.  For the most part the ghost are not monsters they are like a lot of J & K-horror ghost that people (in the west) will have seen, that is pale people with black eyes  like Sadako.

If you are looking for gory, slasher films then the whispering corridor / Ghost school films probably aren't for you although it may be worth giving ‘A Blood Pledge’ a watch. If you are looking for something different with a good story then give them a watch.

Memento Mori

Title - Memento Mori (Ghost school 2 or Whispering Corridors 2)
Language -  Korean
Genre - Horror, ghost

Memento Mori is the second film in the ghost school series of films, the first being Whispering Corridors but, like all the films in the series, it is not a sequel.  It has the same setting of an all girls school, it focuses on the relationships between some of the students  and teachers and there’s a ghost but it is a different tale with new characters.

Memento Mori was a hard film film to follow as it it is not linear, the story follows events that happen in the present but is also interspersed with flashbacks.  The main problem with this is that it was hard to tell when it switch from one to the other.

The film starts with Min-Ah, one of the students at the school who seems to be obsessed with a diary she is reading.  The diary was written by two other students, Hyo-shin and Shi-Eun and most of the film follows their relationship both through flashbacks of Min-Ah (and later Shi-Eun) reading the diary and of what is happening in the present.

Memento Mori starts by setting what the school life is like, the classes are chaotic and the girls all have their own groups of friends, the teachers have trouble keeping the classes under control.  Min-ah has a group of friends but she seems to be drawn to the diary and after Hyo-Shin’’s death she seems to  become increasingly obsessed with Shi-Eun.

While Min-Ah has the diary we follow Shi-Eun & Hyo-Shin’s from their getting together through their coming out and touching on the events that lead to them breaking up and when Shi-Eun is reading the diary we see more about their breakup and the events leading to Hyo-Shin’s death.  It is during the time Hyo-Shin is reading the diary that the ghost is most active and Min-Ah’s obsession seems at it’s strongest.

I found the flow of Memento Mori hard going, half the story is told through flashbacks but there didn’t seem much to say when it was a flashback of the present.  The film not only jumps from past to present without any warning but the flashbacks are not in order for example the scenes in the hospital is split up over a couple of flashbacks which are between other flashbacks.  I think it is done to slowly reveal the past events of the main two characters but, at times it just makes the film a bit of a jumble.

A small part of the film does make sense and that is when the ghost first starts to manifest.  The ghost starts to haunt Min-Ah and even tells her that she wants the return of her diary but by the end of the film the diary is not mentioned.  The ghost does go away at the same time as the diary goes missing but it is never shown that this is why the ghost leaves.

Another thing that can make the film hard to follow, especially at the end is the telepathy that is first shared between Hyo-Shin & Shi-Eun and then later between Shi-Eun and Min-Ah.  I think part of the problem I had with this was due to me using subtitles, there is a lot going on at the end of the film  so when two characters are talking without a lot of the normal visual cues and time taken from looking at the action to read the text it can cause extra problems.  The telepathy itself is an interesting plot device, I've read a few different views on what it means but, at least on a basic leave it seems to symbolize the state of the relationship between Shi-Eun & Hyo-Shin and then later Shi-Eun & Min-Ah.  The telepathic link is strongest between the couple(s) at the beginning of the relationship but, as Hyo-Shin and Shi-Eun drift apart the link is used less and less and then is used again between Shi-Eun and Min-Ah at the end of the film as their relationship starts.

The one thing Memento Mori does do right (in my opinion) is how it handles the romantic relationships.  There are a couple of times that Memento Mori could have fall back on using sex scenes either to help move the plot along or just because there is an opportunity there to do it but it doesn’t.  The fact that we see any kind of sex helps keep the story more emotional and, for one part of the plot helps to keep a bit of the mystery, we never know if Hyo-shin is pregnant.

There are a couple of plot line that seems to go nowhere.  At the start of the film there is a scene with two girls tied up by the leg in the swimming pool but this is never mentioned.  In the film  At the beginning of the film  and part way through it is mentioned that there may be a curse on the school and that five people have already died and that one more person (after Hyo-Shin) needs to die to lift the curse but nothing is made of this, we do not find out about any other deaths.  We do see one other character dead and there are some theories that Shi-Eun died at the end but none of this is ever linked back to the curse.  I do think that the theory about Shi-Eun being dead at the end is not true, if any of the girls are dead then it would most likely be Min-Ah because of the dream like sequence we see whilst the school is locked upped, but this doesn't make any sense to any of the relationships in the film so I don’t believe she died.

For all its faults Memento Mori has a good story and is an interesting film but it isn't an easy watch you need time and patience to work out what is happening when and you probably need to see it more than once.