Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary
South Korea’s ultracompetitive education system is world-renowned. Students spend years studying for an exam so important that it has the potential to determine their entire future. Imagine being such a hopeless student that your parents and teachers urge you to guess the answers, believing you have a better chance of stumbling upon the correct choice than through any logical reasoning. This is the predicament faced by the protagonists of KIM Min-ha’s horror comedy Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary. We meet Jiyeon (played by Son Joo-yeon), an aspiring film director and avid cinephile; her devoted camerawoman Hyun-jung (Kim Do-yeon), and the budding actress Eun-byul (Jung Da-eun) — three high school seniors with big dreams but an even bigger problem: their abysmal grades and test scores. Success hinges on gaining admission to a prestigious university, which, in turn, requires stellar test scores. However, with the College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) fast approaching, these three friends realize that no amount of cramming will save them. While editing videos in the school’s media room, Jiyeon discovers a mysterious VHS tape from 1998. The tape reveals a chilling secret: any student who triumphs over the school’s resident spirits in a game of hide-and-seek on the anniversary of the school’s founding will be granted a perfect score on the CSAT. Failure, however, comes with a dire consequence—vanishing from everyone’s memory. To make matters worse, merely watching the tape curses the viewer to be relentlessly pursued by the school ghost. It is this turn of events that inspires the three protagonists, joined by So-yeon (Kim Bo-ra), a fourth student who speaks a hilarious mix of broken Japanese and Korean, to take control of their lives and face the ghostly challenge head-on. If you’re looking to be frightened and terrified, Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary won’t do the trick. The film is only a horror in the sense that it uses meta-humor to lampoon popular local horror series such as Ju-on and Whispering Corridors. On the other hand, the film works as a hilarious and clever satire that critiques Korean education, the pressure adults put on Korean children to succeed, school bullying, and even the effectiveness of religion. In fact, attentive viewers will notice that none of the girls are truly idiots, as each displays flashes of brilliance while trying to outwit the school’s resident dimwitted ghost, proving that a test score doesn’t define a person’s intelligence or potential. — Chris Weatherspoon
The Tenants
Yoon Eun-kyung’s The Tenants is a stark, black-and-white parable of South Korea’s housing crisis, where dreams of upward mobility clash with the harsh realities of a cutthroat economy. In a dystopian Seoul, young office worker Shin-dong (Kim Dae-geon) struggles to make ends meet. He toils at a synthetic meat factory to afford his modest apartment and yearns for a life with better opportunities and fresh air. As anyone living in Korea knows, these things are often hard to find outside the bustling Seoul metropolitan area. Shin-dong’s living situation becomes uncertain when his landlord threatens to increase the rent, forcing him to explore the city’s “beneficial” programs for citizens. Here, the film cleverly highlights the irony of a city grappling with a housing crisis offering meager solutions. To avoid eviction, Shin-dong resorts to subletting his bathroom to an eccentric couple, only to find himself entangled in a surreal and escalating nightmare. The film’s absurd premise serves as a metaphor for the dehumanizing effects of capitalism and the desperation it breeds. As Shin-dong’s situation spirals out of control, the film moves into darker territory, highlighting the exploitation faced by young singles in areas like work, housing, and healthcare. It paints a picture of a system seemingly designed to trap them in a sprawling, organism-like metropolis that works against their best interests. Visually, “The Tenants” is a striking work of art. Shot entirely in black-and-white, the film’s stark aesthetic amplifies the story’s bleakness, while the surreal imagery and dreamlike sequences add a layer of unsettling ambiguity. One of the most chilling aspects of “The Tenants” is how Yoon manages to make the dystopian, futuristic Seoul feel eerily similar to the present-day city. The performances are equally impressive, particularly KIM Dae-geon as Shin-dong. He convincingly portrays the character’s descent into desperation and paranoia, making him a sympathetic yet flawed protagonist. Heo Dong-won is also a scene-stealer as the freakishly tall, unnervingly quirky subletter who constantly keeps viewers on edge. The Tenants is a bleak and often unsettling film that may be difficult for some to watch. However, its unflinching examination of the dark underbelly of modern society and the thought-provoking questions it raises make the discomfort worthwhile. — Chris Weatherspoon
Tenement
Cambodian horror outing Tenement may not offer a lot in the way of originality for seasoned fright-fare aficionados, but it looks great and boasts fine performances. After aspiring horror manga writer Neth Soriya (Thanet Thorn), a Cambodian woman who lives in Japan, is told by an editor to write something more personal, her photographer boyfriend Daichi (Yoshihiko Hosoda) suggests that they visit her old family apartment complex in Phnom Penh. This being a horror movie, their journey turns out to be a poor decision, as the run-down complex houses not only evil spirits but ghosts of the Khmer Rouge regime. Cowriters/codirectors Sokyou Chea and Inrasothythep tackle that tragic time in history through the lens of a supernatural shocker, and although the beats they follow may feel familiar, the final result is an intriguing watch that offers a unique cultural spin on traditional Japanese horror, making Tenement an effort well worth seeking out. — Joseph Perry
Respati
Indonesian/South Korean coproduction Respati is a mixed bag with its strongest points being its special effects work and eerie set pieces. Director Sidharta Tata’s film finds high schooler Respati (Devano Danendra) foreseeing people’s deaths after his parents die in an accident. Aided by his best friend Tirta (Mikha Hernan) and new, odd-acting girl in school/potential love interest Wulan (Keisya Levronka), Respati sets out to uncover the mystery of who is haunting his dreams, and how to stop the killings. An attempt at teen terror American-movie–style by way of Indonesian folk horror, Tata shows a flair for crafting engaging, creepy set pieces and his cast members turn in nice work, but the film doesn’t offer much new to the expected tropes, and falls to levels of corniness at times — for example, at one point Respati strikes a cliched pose straight out of virtually any superhero film of the past few decades. Still, Respati has enough going for it in its supernatural dream-realm sequences to warrant a watch. — Joseph Perry
The Tenants, Tenement, Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary, and Respati screened as part of South Korea’s Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN), which ran July 4–14, 2024. For more info, check out their website at https://www.bifan.kr/eng/.
A man of the world, guest reviewer Chris Weatherspoon has lived in South Korea for “quite a bit.” A huge fan of all cinema, Chris also works locally in the entertainment industry, and knows what he is talking about . . . alright!?
