The Horrors of Adolescence

Oh yeon-seo and song chae-yoon in a blood pledge

The South Korean education system has long been scrutinized for its fixation on perfection. There are countless articles, television dramas, and songs dedicated to exposing the flaws that are present in an education system – and society – that demands perfection. When government censorship of cinema ended after the ousting of South Korea’s military dictatorship, New Korean Wave cinema exploded; this gave a new generation of filmmakers the ability to publicly criticize the issues they saw with their country.

One of the most glaring criticisms of the South Korean education system and notable exports of New Korean Wave cinema came in the form of Whispering Corridors.

Whispering Corridors was released as a standalone film in 1998, and upon its massive success, has been followed by five sequels: Memento Mori (1999), Wishing Stairs (2003), Voice (2005), A Blood Pledge (2009), and The Humming (2021).

l-r: whispering corridors, memento mori, wishing stairs, voice, a blood pledge, the humming

Thematically, the films are similar but don’t act as direct sequels. Each film takes place at a different all-girls high school, focusing on the abuse suffered by the students at the hands of their teachers and classmates. The setting of the Whispering Corridors series being schools is fitting: according to a 2019 poll, nearly 34% of Korean middle and high school students contemplated suicide due to academic pressure.

An environment that drives children to consider such extremes is part of what inspired producer Lee Choon-yeon to write horror films set in high schools. In an interview, Lee stated, “I guess another motivation on my part was…my antagonism toward the way Korean education was going at the time…Korean secondary education was geared toward suppressing individuality and creativity.” Aside from being some of the first mainstream films to criticize the Korean education system, the Whispering Corridors series also feature taboo topics such as teen suicide and sexual assault.

rie young-jin and park ye-jin in memento mori

The central characters in each installment are, to some degree, outcasts: timid, artsy, intelligent young women who are taken advantage of and destroyed by a system rigged against them. Many of the films focus on how the school system ruins friendships and relationships in favour of molding the perfect student. In Memento Mori, students Shi-eun and Hyo-sin are harassed by their peers for being in a relationship; the social pressure of being in a same-sex relationships drives Shi-eun away, and Hyo-sin ultimately commits suicide. In Wishing Stairs, best friends Jin-sung and So-hee are torn apart when they compete against each other for a spot on a Russian ballet team. After Jin-sung makes a wish on the legendary wishing stairs, So-hee becomes paralyzed, and Jin-sung gets the coveted position. So-hee commits suicide after she realizes she can’t continue pursuing ballet, and her vengeful spirits torments Jin-sung and the other students.

Whispering Corridors speaks to the horrors of adolescence: the fear of not fitting in, the fear of rejection, the fear of not being perfect. And by the end of each film, we realize that the villain is not the dead girl haunting the school halls, the students who mercilessly bully each other, or even the teachers who encourage corporal punishment; rather, the villain is always the school, and the brutal education system that pushes the students over the edge. The education system is what ultimately robs the girls in the Whispering Corridors films of their adolescence and sometimes, their lives.

It’s easy to brush off Whispering Corridors as another run-of-the-mill film series featuring ghostly girls and overused horror cliches. Like any good horror film, there are brutal and creative deaths and gory scenes filled with blood and screams. But at its core, the films are thoughtful critiques of a burdensome and often horrific education system and a society that abandons those who don’t conform.

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Frankie Quinn is the resident scaredy cat who takes a particular interest in the intersection of feminism and queer culture in horror media.

Death Becomes Us

Death on a pale horse - Gustave Doré, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ahh, death. One of two things in life that are unavoidable.

Every one of us is born, and we will die. A prospect many find terrifying. Perhaps it’s because in modern first world countries, we are far removed from death. It’s not a part of our daily lives like it was for our ancestors.

They contended with plague-ridden corpses piled high in the streets during the Black Death of the 1300’s. They lived with the horrendously high rate of death for mothers in childbirth and their newborn infants.

In Victorian times, it was even normal for nana Margaret’s pallid body to be laid out in the parlour for a few weeks after her fatal bout of consumption.

It's fair to assume that a greater familiarity with death would take some of the terror out of the process. But there’s still that nagging uncertainty: What happens after we die? What about my body? My soul?

The Body

The question of what happens to one’s body can be answered in life. All you need is a will to specify what should be done with your remains, and today there is a wealth of options.

You could go for the classic coffin burial and store your skeleton underground. Or have your body cremated and the ashes planted with a tree or blended into a twenty-foot-tall concrete statue of your likeness. Immortality anyone?

Let’s not forget pulverization and liquification. There’s no better way to remember Uncle Joe than with a human smoothie on the mantlepiece!

Then there’s my personal favourite, the sky burial.

Vultures - FishOil at English Wikipedia. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Sky burials were practiced in regions of Tibet, India, China, and Mesopotamia for millennia before religions like Zoroastrianism were marginalized. Zoroastrians and Buddhists believe in the transmigration of spirits—a cycle of rebirth—which means that the body need not be preserved after death as it is merely an empty vessel.

The body of the deceased is left exposed to the elements and the scavenging of wild animals, particularly carrion birds like vultures. Nature helps return the corpse quickly and efficiently to the earth, limiting the potential spread of disease.

Tower of Silence - Inside the tower of silence, Bombay. Flickr

The ancient Persians even erected special structures called dakhma, or Towers of Silence, where bodies were left exposed to scavengers on a raised dais. Once the bones had been picked clean, skeletal remains were deposited into a central pit to decompose further.

Human lives are expensive. We take a tremendous amount of resources from the earth to sustain ourselves. In death, a sky burial allows us to give something back. The body decomposes, fertilizing the soil, and nourishing the animals that eat from it.

No burning of fuels or expensive real estate required!

Sky burials are an appealing option for those conscious of the footprint they leave behind, but there’s a small problem. Under Canadian law, a sky burial is viewed as desecration of a corpse…

Well, we’ve all got a friend willing to do a couple years in the clink for us right?

The Soul

For 5000 years or more, religions from all corners of the globe have tried to answer the soul question. No matter what belief system you adhere to, a common thread is that there’s a part of us that is immutable and will persist in some form after we die.

Whether that’s rebirth in a new body, the continuation of life in heaven (or hell), or something else entirely is dependant on the beliefs of the individual. Whatever you believe, having faith dispels some of the uncertainty of death.

For the devout, they need only concern themselves with living according to their religious tenants to be guaranteed a safe place for their soul to reside.

But what if you’re an atheist? You’ve got no faith in a higher power, no promise of life eternal. You may even baulk at the idea of a soul.

Consciousness should be your main concern if that’s the case. Will it be lights out and the end of all perception? Or could our consciousness rejoin the collective oneness of the universe?

You’ll just have to wait to find out!

Universe - Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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Nicholas Kungl - is a Professional Writing student at Algonquin College who has always been fascinated by the darker side of life. He started out writing scenes for tabletop RPGs and his friends got a kick out of it. Eventually, he wondered if anyone else would too. He spends his free time doing yoga, listening to music, and wandering green spaces with his dogs.

The Ambiguous Horror of Female Sexuality

Much of the horror in The Innocents comes from the instability of Miss Giddens (Deborah Kerr), the new governess to Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens).

Shortly after her arrival at Bly manor, Miss Giddens comes to believe that the estate is haunted by Peter Quint (Peter Wyngarde), the former valet, and Miss Jessel (Clytie Jessop), the former governess. The two were having a sordid affair until their deaths on the estate—Quint by a drunken fall on the steps in the winter, and Miss Jessel by drowning herself in the lake—which scarred the children deeply.

Throughout the course of The Innocents, Miss Giddens is the only one who claims to see or hear any ghosts; she believes that the Flora and Miles can see their dead caregivers, but they lie about it every step of the way. Her belief is reinforced by the children’s increasingly suspicious behaviour, something that Miss Giddens takes as proof of the existence of ghosts.

In the afternoon sun, Flora and Miss Giddens sit on the gazebo at the shore of the lake. In the reeds of the lake, Miss Jessel stands in a black dress, staring back at them. She and Flora seem to be looking at each other, but when Miss Giddens asks who the woman is, Flora is puzzled; she doesn’t see anyone.

The children’s behaviour could be attributed not to ghosts, but to the further breaking of Miss Giddens’ fragile psyche: perhaps she is seeing figures and faces that aren’t there, hearing voices that don’t call to her. But Miss Giddens is firm in her belief that there is something wrong at Bly.

Miss Giddens, eyes wide with horror, concludes that the children are being possessed by Quint and Miss Jessel: “I can’t pretend to understand what its purpose is. I only know that it is happening. Something secretive and whispery…and indecent.”

Secrets, corruption, and wickedness are recurring themes throughout The Innocents. Miss Giddens is the daughter of a preacher, and remarks that the home she grew up in was very unlike Bly manor. It was a small, modest house: “Much too small to keep secrets,” she tells Miles. Contrary to her young wards who tell secrets and whisper everywhere they go, Miss Giddens grew up in the open, with her secrets and desires laid out for all to see.

Though Miss Giddens has an inherent disgust for all things obscene and wicked, she still finds herself drawn to them. She presses housekeeper Mrs. Grose (Megs Jenkins) for as much information on Quint and Miss Jessel’s trysts as she can, captivated by the indecency of it all; Miss Giddens becomes a woman obsessed.

Her obsession manifests in the form of preserving the children’s innocence and freeing them from what she perceives to be Quint and Miss Jessel’s unholy influences.

In what is the most jarring and blatantly sexual sequence in the film, Miss Giddens is further tormented by disembodied voices.

Miss Giddens is alone, sitting by the fire and praying with her Bible when Miss Jessel’s giggle suddenly cuts through the silence. She tries to ignore it, but the giggles become whispers between Quint and Miss Jessel—almost as if Miss Giddens is overhearing a secret conversation between the departed lovers—so she begins investigating.

With only a candlestick to light her way, Miss Giddens walks down the halls of the manor, checking every doorknob and window as the wind howls outside. She seems intent on finding where the voices are coming from. As she does, the voices and noises around her intensify.

Look at the children, Quint whispers.

The children are watching, Miss Jessel says.

Knock before you enter! Quint demands.

The voices overlap into a symphony of lust and anger and desperation. Miss Giddens is overwhelmed in her anxious state, running through the manor until she reaches her room. When she closes the door, the voices come to a halt, and she’s finally safe again.

In the climax of the film, Miss Giddens confronts Miles. She believes that he will be free from Quint’s influence when he admits the possession says Quint’s name aloud. Miles tells Miss Giddens that she’s crazy, and no one will believe what she says because at her core, she’s wicked: “A damned hussy, a damned dirty-minded hag!”

Miles’ declaration seems to frighten Miss Giddens just as much as the ghosts that she had encountered at Bly.

Miss Giddens, more than anything, values being seen as pure. And while upon first glance, she and Miss Jessel are polar opposites, they are both controlled by their underlying desires. Where Miss Jessel was controlled by her lust, Miss Giddens is controlled by her purity.

By the end of the film, it remains unclear whether the ghosts at Bly were real or not. The only clear part is that the children are further traumatized by the presence of Miss Giddens and her obsession with upholding some sort of innocence. Perhaps it was Miss Giddens’ misplaced affection that was her undoing; or it was her repression and delusion, the belief that she was always doing the right thing. That unrelenting belief is Miss Giddens’ downfall, and it proves to be the most dangerous part of The Innocents.

With the screenplay being written in part by Truman Capote, who emphasized the psychosexual undertone of the haunting, the ambiguity of The Innocents is as blatant as it is frightening.

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Frankie Quinn is the resident scaredy cat who takes a particular interest in the intersection of feminism and queer culture in horror media.

The Terror of Existence

Ghosts and demons. Vampires and witches. Zombies and mummies. Classic horror monsters share at least one thing in common. They’re all imaginary! We suspend disbelief when we see them on screen or in books, allowing ourselves to be scared, but we know they exist only in the theatre of the mind. Turn the T.V. off —Dracula’s as good as dead. Fictional scares don’t compare to the true horrors of real life.

The Terror S1 AMC NETWORKS Copyright: © AMC NETWORKS

AMC’s The Terror exemplifies the terror of existence through the fictionalized account of the 1845 Franklin expedition, in which two British navy ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were sent into the Canadian arctic in search of the northwest passage. The ships were frozen into the ice near King William Island, a region known today as Nunavut. After a year of waiting for the ice to melt, the ships were abandoned, and in 1848 the remaining crew set out across the frozen wasteland in search of salvation. They were never seen again.

In the series, the crews of Terror and Erebus are constantly hunted by a supernatural polar bear monster called Tuunbaq. The creature seems to be nature’s wrath incarnate, sent to scour Europeans from the frigid landscape. But the bear becomes almost incidental as the sailors face more insidious enemies: consumption, scurvy, lead poisoning, and the land itself.

Consumption

TB Poster - By Rensselaer County Tuberculosis Association. - U.S. National Library of Medicine. Public Domain.

Tuberculosis, or consumption, is a bacterial disease that commonly affects the lungs and is spread from person to person through the air. It earned the name consumption because of the rapid weight loss associated with the disease. Other symptoms include chronic cough with blood filled mucus, fever, and night sweats. Tuberculosis is fatal if left untreated.

In the first episode of The Terror, Dr. Goodsir remarks that they’d already buried three sailors on Beechey Island. When archaeologists discovered those remains in the 1980’s, they concluded the men had indeed died of tuberculosis.

Scurvy

Scurvy is caused by a lack of vitamin C in the diet and was identified by the Egyptians as early as 1550BC. The first signs are often purplish bruises, followed by bleeding along the hairline and gums, tooth loss, skin lesions, the opening of previously healed wounds or scars, constant hunger, weakness, aching limbs and joints, and eventually—death.

Have You Scurvy? – Scurvy, Atlas Obscura

Fortunately for the Franklin expedition, scurvy was nearly beaten by the time the ships departed from England in 1845. Each sailor was given a daily ration of lemon juice to ward off the disease. But as the expedition dragged on and rations ran low, it was only a matter of time before everyone felt its effects. Sailors died at their posts or keeled over on marches, never to rise again.

Lead Poisoning

The expedition was well provisioned with a three-year supply of tinned soup and vegetables as well as salt cured meat. Stephen Goldner, the man awarded the tinned food contract, was given a mere seven weeks to complete the order. In the rush to get it done, the tins were sloppily sealed with lead solder that contaminated the food within.

Symptoms of lead poisoning include nausea, diarrhea, numbness, mood disorders, abdominal pain, and inflammation of the brain. The latter being particularly dangerous in a survival situation as it effects the ability to think clearly and solve problems. Several of their bodies were exhumed, examined, and found to contain up to ten times the normal amount of lead in their bones.

The Arctic

Man Proposes God Disposes - Edwin Landseer - 1864

The region surrounding King William Island has winter temperatures as low as -40°c, with only four months of the year—June to September—being above freezing. Prolonged exposure to severe cold can cause frostbite, hypothermia, and death.

In the show, sailors protect themselves from hypothermia by burning the oil used to fuel the ships turbines. But crewmen sent on hunting or scouting parties were still subject to the ravages of frostbite. This is starkly depicted in a scene where doctors casually snip off a sailors blackened, dead toes.

Can it get any worse?

Oh yes! All this amounts to increasingly bad decision making and impaired judgement as the sailors try to work through the challenges of surviving in the arctic. Civilization is discarded in the pursuit of survival; they turn on one another. Battling threats from within, and the forces of nature itself, they’re doomed to die.

What makes this story truly terrifying isn’t the supernatural polar bear monster. It’s the perilous lives of the sailors. It’s knowing real people suffered and died under some of the most unforgiving circumstances imaginable: lost, freezing, starving, poisoned, and diseased, with no hope of rescue.

That is the terror of existence.

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Nicholas Kungl - A Professional Writing student at Algonquin College who has always been fascinated by the darker side of life. After all, what stares back at you from the abyss is ever so interesting, don’t you think? He spends his free time doing yoga, listening to music, and wandering green spaces with his dogs.

Thir13en Goats? I Mean GHOSTS!

Thir13en Goats? A Parody edit of the Thir13en ghosts title

Horror fans love compiling lists of all the worst or cheesiest horror movies they’ve forced themselves to sit through, including low budget, independent, bad sequels and remakes. 2000s films are often included because they came out during the prime time for using crappy CGI effects, and we believe that laughing about it can be a fun way to justify wasting a whole hour and a half of our lives staring unimpressed at the screen. Today I want to talk about my favourite horror movie: it’s from the early 2000s, it’s a remake, and one that many critics say relies more on shock factor than good writing—

But that’s only partially true, and focussing on that alone may discourage people from getting into a truly spectacular movie.

“Misery Loves Company!” Cover art for the Thir13en Ghosts VHS and DVD release

Thirteen Ghosts (stylized as Thir13en Ghosts) is Dark Castle Entertainment’s remake of the 1960 film. It averages from one to three-and-a-half stars for most ratings, and it wasn’t so popular when it released in 2001, either. However, it has gained attention—especially over the last few years—and has been recognized for being a visual masterpiece through its use of practical effects. It has a decent story, one that can be genuinely funny, with characters and lore that surpass expectations.

Fans of movies like Scream will recognize Matthew Lillard, the actor who played Stu Macher in 1996. In Thirteen Ghosts Lillard plays a psychic named Dennis Rafkin who just won’t shut up about how much he hates his job, but you might complain too if your supernatural-obsessed boss is careless enough to get himself killed by his own ghost that you helped him capture…and before paying you a single cent of what he owes you. Then, as if to make matters worse, he’s arranged for his gigantic glass house to be given away to his financially struggling nephew, his two kids and the nanny they shouldn’t be able to afford.

At this point Rafkin says, “To hell with it!” and decides to sneak into the glass house dressed as a man from the Power Company to search for his money. When everyone’s inside, the doors shut and lock on their own—and when he tries to warn the family about the collection of their uncle’s ghosts in the basement, some who will definitely try to kill them, the father is so clueless that he mishears and asks if Rafkin means “goats.”

Movie screenshot of the ghosts

These goats—erm, ghosts—are one of the major highlights of the film. They’re not created with CGI at all, but are actors dressed in unique costumes and makeup. For what some of them may lack in screentime, the DVD extras make up for it by telling their individual backstories through short videos in ways that the main movie wouldn’t have had time to explore. Each of them represents a symbol of the Black Zodiac—a concept similar to the Western Zodiac signs, but with a purpose much more sinister…

In the end, Thirteen Ghosts still has a few cheesy horror movie habits, but that’s what makes it (and the genre) fun! It’s an underrated gem to be found among 2000s horror, both visually spectacular and offering a lot of detail to those who are willing dig down into it.

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Teagan kept on hearing she would have to write some blog posts for college. That joke about writing about horror gave her real fits…then she realized they were serious. At least she’s seen plenty of slasher movies and has her dark sense of humour to work in her favour.

You have just heard from her with her funny little games. They say she’s a writer now. Ha ha.

Diabolus in Musica

The Devil’s Interval

When I was sixteen, I performed an original song on electric guitar for a live audience at our music school’s annual festival. A video of the show found its way into my grandparents’ VCR. They liked the song and were so proud, but I was warned, “Careful what notes you’re playing, those are too dark.” I hadn’t a clue but the progression of notes I’d used were once thought to summon the devil. All I knew is that I liked the sound of it!

Composers from as far back as the 1800’s, like Beethoven and Wagner, have been using the tritone—essentially a triad of notes three whole steps apart—to add a dark, foreboding, and unsettling element to their music. When these notes are played slowly and in progression, they create a dissonant tone that early listeners dubbed “evil” because the sounds were unexpected and not pleasing to the ear.

Speaking of evil, the devil made his appearance in heavy music as something to be feared. In 1970, Black Sabbath paired the doom-laden notes of the tritone with lyrics espousing the dangers of the devil to create their self titled classic, “Black Sabbath.”

The intro showcases how the triad can be used to create an oppressive, dark atmosphere:

Black Sabbath, “Black Sabbath” (Intro)

The intensity builds as the song progresses, until reaching an alarming crescendo:

Black Sabbath, “Black Sabbath” (End)

Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and many others incorporated the tritone into their music, but the “evil” they portrayed in songs was usually something they were warning listeners against, the moral being that we should run from the devil. In the documentary Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Ronnie James Dio remarks, “In my mind, we live in heaven, and we live in hell. God and the devil are inherent in each of us. Its our choice to make, we can take the road to good, and we can take the road to bad.”

It wasn’t until the mid 80’s and early 90’s that bands like Slayer, GWAR, and Cannibal Corpse changed the narrative around horror in music. These bands took the evil sound of the tritone and combined it with brutal imagery and graphic lyrics featuring themes of death, war, murder, rape, suicide, cannibalism, satanism, the occult, mental illness, and the degradation of society. In this iteration of scary music, the devil became a counterculture icon, used to give the middle finger to the church. Horror in this context reflects society ills and it’s used to challenge the status quo.

One of my personal favorites from this era is Slayer’s, “Live Undead” which takes listeners through the visceral, painful experience of becoming a zombie. It’s so damn creepy and the blood curdling scream near the end sends a shiver down my spine every time I hear it.

Slayer, “Live Undead”

Cannibal Corpse takes horror themes to the extreme, shocking audiences with vile lyrics and album covers featuring monsters, demons, and the undead performing grotesque and depraved acts. The song “Butchered at Birth” is a good example, detailing the macabre delights of dining on babies. The song is abrasive, the lyrics are disturbing, and unsettled is exactly how they want you to feel when you hear it.

Cannibal Corpse, “Butchered at Birth”

GWAR brings horror to the stage in a big way, dressing as aliens from another planet and staging elaborate live shows where attendees can watch them eviscerate effigies of corrupt politicians, religious officials, and pop culture icons all while being sprayed with imitation blood, urine, vomit, and semen. If you’re lucky, you might even be dragged on stage and fed to a giant maggot or shoved through a human meat grinder!

GWAR, “Sick of You”

By now, you must be thinking anyone who enjoys this kind of entertainment must be a sick, twisted individual. But most fans know the horrific images and dark themes portrayed are absurdly unreal—after all, demons aren’t going to burst out of your gut anytime soon. It’s the absurdity that allows us to play with these dark themes and retain our humanity. We can have fun with it, because in the end, its all just pretend!

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Nicholas Kungl - A Professional Writing student at Algonquin College who has always been fascinated by the darker side of life. After all, what stares back at you from the abyss is ever so interesting, don’t you think? He spends his free time doing yoga, listening to music, and wandering green spaces with his dogs.