Background
This is another one from Korea, and it's the third in a trilogy of sorts that started with "Whispering Corridors", continued with "Memento Mori" and now ends with "Wishing Stairs". What they have in common are all girl's schools and supernatural things that go bump in the night.
Story
On a ballet school in South Korea, behind one of the dormitories, there is a stair with 28 steps. If you walk up it one step at a time, counting each step, and make a genuine wish at the top, a 29th step will appear, and when you climb it, your wish will come true. This could make for a very interesting film, but does it?
The movie revolves around two students, So-hee, who is a very talented ballet dancer, and Jin-sung, who lives somewhat in the shadow of her friend. It starts out idyllic, like any high-school film, giving us a chance to get to know the girls as they skip school to go to a concert, spend late nights together trying on makeup and changing their hair, and pledge their love for each other. As the film progresses, So-hee and Jin-Sung find themselves competing for a place at a Russian ballet school. Jin-sung, jealous of So-hee's talent, goes to the stairs and wishes that she will win the contest. Another girl, who does act extremely weird, also climbs the stairs, wanting to lose weight.
As can be expected, we are treated to the same basic plot as in the story "The Monkey's Paw" by William Wyman Jacobs - one should always be very careful what one wishes for, because one might actually recieve it...
Verdict
So, is it any good? As you can probably guess from the length of the review alone - not really. There is about 15 minutes of supernatural horror towards the end of the film, but before that there is over an hour that is very incoherent, uneven and confusing. There is not a lot of character development - not that a horror movie always needs that, but this isn't even scary. All of the scary moments - and I do mean all of them - are totally predictable. This makes for a film that is neither scary nor exceptionally interesting in any other way. It is not completely disappointing, but unfortunately a very sad ending to an otherwise good trilogy.
This is another one from Korea, and it's the third in a trilogy of sorts that started with "Whispering Corridors", continued with "Memento Mori" and now ends with "Wishing Stairs". What they have in common are all girl's schools and supernatural things that go bump in the night.
Story
On a ballet school in South Korea, behind one of the dormitories, there is a stair with 28 steps. If you walk up it one step at a time, counting each step, and make a genuine wish at the top, a 29th step will appear, and when you climb it, your wish will come true. This could make for a very interesting film, but does it?
The movie revolves around two students, So-hee, who is a very talented ballet dancer, and Jin-sung, who lives somewhat in the shadow of her friend. It starts out idyllic, like any high-school film, giving us a chance to get to know the girls as they skip school to go to a concert, spend late nights together trying on makeup and changing their hair, and pledge their love for each other. As the film progresses, So-hee and Jin-Sung find themselves competing for a place at a Russian ballet school. Jin-sung, jealous of So-hee's talent, goes to the stairs and wishes that she will win the contest. Another girl, who does act extremely weird, also climbs the stairs, wanting to lose weight.
As can be expected, we are treated to the same basic plot as in the story "The Monkey's Paw" by William Wyman Jacobs - one should always be very careful what one wishes for, because one might actually recieve it...
Verdict
So, is it any good? As you can probably guess from the length of the review alone - not really. There is about 15 minutes of supernatural horror towards the end of the film, but before that there is over an hour that is very incoherent, uneven and confusing. There is not a lot of character development - not that a horror movie always needs that, but this isn't even scary. All of the scary moments - and I do mean all of them - are totally predictable. This makes for a film that is neither scary nor exceptionally interesting in any other way. It is not completely disappointing, but unfortunately a very sad ending to an otherwise good trilogy.
