Skunkyrate Gripping story with well-crafted characters

HottWwjdIam There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

Siflutter It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Verklagekasper Whispering Corridors spawned no less than four sequels. It seems fairly unknown outside Asia, though, which is a shame on the one hand but on the other hand good for those of us who enjoy searching for gems among movies not so known in the West. Although the stories of the Whispering Corridor movies are independent of another, they all take place in girl schools where the students suffer from high pressure, competition - and from hauntings. It's not all horror, though. In fact, the drama aspect is very strong.Perhaps Whispering Corridors could be scarier. But it has a heart. It makes you care about the characters and the tragedies they're involved in. I've been impressed by the young actresses' performances and the cinematography. Even though the whole movie takes place at a school, it never gets dull to look at. All this makes watching it an experience so much more rewarding than watching an ordinary teen slasher film.

refresh daemon I really didn't expect much going into this film. I think I'd been burned by too many mediocre horror movies featuring ghosties in the past, so to watch one of the grandmamas of the modern Asian ghost girl genre had me bracing for every trite conceit that could be thrown my way. Whispering Corridors surprised me. Rather than really being a flashy story about hauntings and killings, it turns out more to be an exploration of the impact of the brutal South Corean high school system on the youth that attend it, using the horror genre as the medium.First of all, I have to say that I wasn't frightened during this film. Not even for a brief moment. Rather than suspense and thrills, I was hooked into the mystery and dramatic elements that were at play. The way that the story is spun, there's no question as to who the ghost was or why it's doing the haunting, but rather, what the ghost's secret is. Now, astute viewers will pick up in the first few scenes of the film what we're looking for and I even managed to make the correct guess at it--although I really just had to watch to have my guess confirmed.Another interesting aspect of the story is that there are three stories going on. One about an artistic student trying to express herself in a system that cares little for her expression, another about a former student who returns as a teacher trying to make peace with her memories and the last about a student rivalry between a model student and the second-rank peer. The strength of this approach is that we anticipate the collision of the separate story lines and are rewarded when they do collide. The weakness of the approach is that the story has to juggle three (well, really two--the third is a B-story) protagonists and sometimes seems to suffer from a lack of focus.The film was clearly made in an era of Corean film-making that hasn't yet reached its more modern proficiency and the equipment/film stock used will have an almost grindhouse/direct-to-video feel to it for those who are only used to modern American/European cinema. Nevertheless, while the directing nor acting is spectacular, it is presented sufficiently as not to serve as a detraction from the story.All in all, this is actually a pretty decent film, even if it's not as much of a horror film as I was expecting. The interesting intertwined story lines and the use of horror to explore societal and personal burdens (and with some measure of tact) left me pleasantly surprised with Whispering Corridors. I can't recommend it to all viewers as the aesthetics might turn off those only looking for beautiful films and those looking for scary ghost or gorefests will be horribly disappointed. But this is an interesting look at the Corean high school experience as well as an intriguing mystery. So, recommended to those with open minds and a willingness to look past the genre for the story within. 8/10.

Shawn Watson But still falls short in providing a coherent storyline. I have no doubt that this film is more intelligible to those who speak Korean but I was a bit lost at times and couldn't keep up with all the characters.The story is about the angry ghost of a dead student at an all-girl school who periodically turns up in the guise of someone new...or something. Like I said, it's hard to follow. But the eerie photography and reliance on practical scares make it worthwhile. Far too many horror films these days are too slick and well-polished for their own good. Whispering Corridors features a certain rawness in it's grainy film stock and editing that gives the film a rather unique atmosphere.The gore isn't terribly excessive, nor is the film extreme in any way. But if you're in need of something different and with a weird edge to it then go for Whispering Corridors. Try hard to keep up though.

bensonmum2 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.