With its fourth installment of teen horror shenaningans, the Whispering Corridors series started to become forumalic after the third film (you could argue the second): vengeful ghost pretending to be nice, lots of corridors (naturally), flickering lights, a dead body or three, school girls and a school. That’s pretty much what you get in all of the films, so can you guess what this fourth chapter is about?
Young-eon spends one unfortunate night to practice her singing. A night where she should have left with her friend Sun-min, turns to tragedy when Young-eon is stalked by an eerie presence and killed by a piece of paper. Points for originiality, even though it was evident what was about to happen. Young-eon finds herself in the music room and starts to notice how things aren’t what they seem. People are passing through her, and no one can hear or see her. There’s obviously something wrong.
She finds her friend, and who’s worried sick about her disappearence. Young-eon eventually manages to communicate with Sun-min by voice only, and the two reform their friendship in a bid to find out who Young-eon, how she died and why. Young-eon is a bit suspicious about a girl that seems to be hanging around her, however, as she considered the class freak.
It soon becomes apparrent that Cho-ah has become some sort of threat to Young-eon who declares that she is dangerous. Sun-min is confused and isnt’ quite sure who to believe. So begins a Scooby-Doo series of events where Cho-ah tries to convince Sun-min to forget Young-eon and let her rest, while Young-eon wants her to find out she died and why. The ending is definitely Scooby-Doo as we get a flashback of events that took place and a thorough explanation of why these events happened.
Starting to feel a bit like Police Academy, the theme is running dry and the scares are not even a chill. Finding your grandmother’s underwear in your soup would probably freak the hell out of you a lot more than this. It’s a plodding piece of theatre that never gets going, and presents itself as a predictable non-event. It’s so tiresome that instead of the The Ring style demon with torn finger nails and white make up, we now get trendy camera work with blurring, and flickering lights. Out of ideas? Probably just taking a break.
The story itself offers less than the previous series, covering no topics that provide some context, or offering anything cohesive. Take for example this blurting full explanation of what happened and why, had the writer and director done their jobs properly, we wouldn’t need a flashback to explain most of it.
It feels as though this was quite a rush job, with even the special effects being inconsistent and lacking finesse. Let’s take for example that the character is a ghost, why then do we see gaffs in the form of reflections, shadows and the like when at the very beginning she notices she doesn’t have either?
One other scene involves her magically not wearing the entirety of what she died in (which is what she wears through the film) and the fact that she handles a casette player when they clearly imply everything goes through her. Talk about suspending any disbelief in the conceptual idea of a ghost. The fact this was released with so many mistakes is clearly and indication of budget problems or downright laziness.
Mood is heightened with a soft, diffused look offering a tint of yellow hue. It lends the film a degree of atmosphere that just isn’t followed through. Unfortunately as soon as the night time scenes begin, it starts to look awfully desperate to create a tension that clearly isn’t there, with flashing lights. To be fair there is one moment in a lift where things take a devilish turn, but it’s acceptable for a few seconds to create the tension. Sadly they carry on, and it starts to look like a train, and any amount of screaming or echoing is not going to make it seemed anything more than a camera darting very quickly and some poor soul running down the corridor with a light. Give the guy a cup of tea for its efforts.
We can probably expect more, as these films are a hit with the teens. Even so, I can imagine that such individuals would also tire of the same gimmick, now that they haven’t been surprised since the first film. Would it be worth watching if it was your first time into the series? Not really. You’d watch it and ignore the better previous films, which would be a shame as they offer enough interest to warrant at least a viewing. This, on the other, warrants a refund and hypnotism to delete or block the memory that let’s you know that you actually sat through this debacle and came out the other end wondering where the film was.
Verdict: Formulaic, inferior fourth film in the Whispering Corridors series. There’s nothing to see here, move along.