Korean movie "The Whispering" review, part two

 

 Release Date: July 13, 2018  Length: 88 minutes  Director/Writer: Choi Sang-Hun

 Main Cast: That's Choi Hee-Jin above and doesn't she make your eyes pop out?!?! We mainly just see these six characters though there are few other appearances by some creepy ghosts(?). It's just a few months before these six friends will be graduating from Mii-Gok high school and after studying so hard for their CSAT(college exam) the group thought why not take a final trip together? Which is what they did and they did remain together as.... none of them came back alive!!!!

So Ju-Yeon as Eun-Ha.... Smartest person in class yet she bombed on the CSAT. Now she has to study even harder for different tests and prepare for interviews if there's any chance of attending a respectable college. Think it's more her mother's dream than Eun-Ha's on attending college and got the impression she was so tired of studying. She shouldn't have done it but when Min-Woo invited her on this trip Eun-Ha gave in and accepted. She also often sees ghosts and such when she falls asleep or nods off which happens often.

Kim Min-Kyu as Min-Woo.... Eun-Ha's best friend, it's a platonic relationship but think he wouldn't mind dating her! Min-Woo's dream is to be a singer and he is very talented, he's also the most level headed of the six friends who are all in the same class. 

Choi Hee-Jin as Jung-Yoon.... The class 'Queen' and why not as she's attractive to the Nth degree in this film! But Jung-Yoon isn't a stuck-up person and it was she who suggested taking this final trip together before graduation.

Kim Young as Woo-Song.... The class prankster who has his own YT channel called 'Beautiful Life'. Woo-Song is often taking videos of his friends which constantly annoys them but to date that channel wasn't all that popular.... until this trip....

Kim Tae-Min as Dung-Ii.... He actually may be the smartest student in the class but won't be attending college as his goal is to take the Civil Servant exam. Dung-Ii's mother runs a daycare center and it's her van they use to take this trip.

Park Jin as Hae-Guk.... Biggest enigma of this film as we really didn't get to know him all that well. Bit of a quiet man who seems to be an athlete but there's something about him that all the others like.

Also.... Lee Yoo-Mi as Ji-Ein... Was Eun-Ha's best friend until dying a year ago(?) and we never did learn why. She often pops up in Eun-Ha's dreams/nightmares.

 Trailer #2

   

 No need to rehash anything so let's dive right back into the action. So while four of the group were working on Woo-Song's live stream from the haunted cave Eun-Ha had wandered off. Huge mistake if you ask me and something totally unexpected happened to Eun-Ha which you can see in four of the above screenshots. She met this little girl about seven in age and what would a girl be doing so deep in this cave? This girl's name was never mentioned but going to call her Jung-Ju as I have a feeling this amusement park was named after her. You know what that means.... this girl has been dead for twenty years and is a ghost! However Eun-Ha nor any of the group new the history of the park so she thought Jung-Ju was just a lost girl but how could Eun-Ha think something like that? The pair headed even deeper into this cave and the aura become even more creepy as voices were constantly heard, her phone wouldn't work so Eun-Ha couldn't contact her friends. The journey ended at the place in the fourth screenshot which appears to be some sort of living quarters, what's going on in this cave? 

 Will get back to Eun-Ha's situation soon but what's become of Woo-Song and his live stream? The viewership keeps increasing and it should go through the roof with a staged event. That was going to be of Dung-Ii popping out of a coffin but now is when things go tragically downhill for the group. By accident Jung-Yoon leaned against a lever, the next thing the group saw was the coffin go crashing down to the next level. Dung-Ii did pop out of the coffin but not to scare the audience but to plead for help which never came. As you can see in that above screenshot there were hands creeping up the sides of the coffin and that was one of the more scary scenes. Min-Woo is the most level headed of the six and told his mates they need to go down to save Dung-Ii from a certain death, Jung-Yoon agreed but not Woo-Song as his live stream by now had such an immense amount of viewers so he wanted to keep the staged scares coming but of course Dung-Ii's coffin disaster wasn't staged. So the pair did make it down to the next level or I guess it could be called a cellar and Dung-Ii was still alive. But not for long as some sort of creature appeared behind Dung-Ii and in another eerie scene popped his eyes out while killing him, seems those eyeballs hanging from the ceilings then are actually real!

 That second screenshot above is the cellar where Dung-Ii was killed, those are bodies hanging from the ceiling! As mentioned there were many creepy scenes and the pics at the bottom have so many more of them. Right after that screenshot you can see Eun-Ha screaming her head off in a fit of panic, what scared her so badly? Of all things there was yet another person deep in this cave and you can see her above, she too went unnamed. This woman was too young to be Jung-Ju's mother so don't know who she is and as a matter of fact who those other bodies are either. So perhaps over the years many others have tried to spend a night in this Haunted Cave attraction and met their untimely deaths, l can't think of anything else that makes sense. So this woman appears to be about 22 in age and has told Eun-Ha she's been trapped in this cave for a while but never said how it happened. But this unknown woman did talk about a ghost portal and it seems this cave is a very active one for ghosts, it's nighttime so of course they're out in full force.

 That portal will be closing soon so she's told Eun-Ha they need to leave the cave now or they'll be stuck there for who knows how long? But Eun-Ha won't leave her friends behind and she has no clue what's been happening with them, this woman has agreed to head back with Eun-Ha but they need to find her mates quickly. There's about twenty minutes to go in the movie and so far just Dung-Ii has been killed but the total will be rising. So on their journey back to find Eun-Ha's group popping up out of nowhere was Min-Woo and was he ever elated to see his dear friend Eun-Ha. However to him she was alone and Eun-Ha said 'What, can't you see the woman with me?'. There was no woman there as she too was a ghost and this time it wasn't Eun-Ha dreaming, that little girl Jung-Ju also was a ghost and she reminded me so much of the girl in the "Phone" movie. The next two deaths happened very quickly, first was Jung-Yoon in the screenshot below who had locked herself in a cage for she thought her friends were going to kill her! Right after that Woo-Song also met his demise but we never did see the actual killing but of the six in the group he may have deserved it for getting them into this mess.

 This review is going easier than I thought, most have been lately since I've finally realized not every single event needs to be discussed. The fourth death was of Hae-Guk and as mentioned a few times we saw so little of him in this film. He too died by having his eyes popped out and wonder if that way of killing was intentional. Among the ghosts we did see Choi who was the original owner and had killed his family twenty years ago, he seems to be the leader of this pack of 'savage ghosts'. In the final scene Eun-Ha and Min-Woo had made it to the cave's entrance, it's now daytime and they better hurry as the portal to the real world is closing. Which was a very heavy steel door but Min-Woo managed to slip outside and was holding it open for Eun-Ha to flee. Which she was about to do until she heard a voice behind her, upon turning around who should be standing there but the spirit of her best friend Ji-Eun! We never did learn how or when she died but Eun-Ha for some reason has felt so guilty since her friend died. So guilty that she walked away from the door to even though Ji-Eun told her to leave. By this time Min-Woo couldn't hold the door open any more as it closed leaving Eun-Ha inside but think that was her plan, to remain there and become a ghost like her dead dear friend. Min-Woo did leave the cave's entrance but have a feeling he never left the park which ended this film.

 Zoomed though the final twenty minutes but didn't leave out any major details. So though most other viewers really panned this movie I enjoyed it quite a bit, not an essential watch but would recommend it. For a grade will give an 8.2/10 which is about a B-, there truly were some very eerie and creepy scenes in this film. The ending was a bit rushed though and wish some things were explained better but all in all am glad I viewed this. Not going to make this a weekly series but will try to have 3-4 more Korean movie reviews by the end of August. Have three more recent ones to watch but the one I'm looking forward to is called "The Housemaid", the original one from 1960! It's in black and white, think I'll make that the final film of the four and I really do think Korea has the best horror flicks. Do recommend viewing the screenshots as they do help you follow the action a bit better plus there's so many of those eerie screenshots below.