So it's interesting to note that the successful Korean scare saga Whispering Corridors is itself set inside the often harsh Asian educational system. Certainly the movie employed the typical Eastern "ghost story" moodiness, but it seemed to overcome said stereotypes to bring freshness to its fear factors. After an equally effective sequel (Memento Mori) the series moved to a dance school and a haunted staircase. Wishing Stairs, from 2003, wants to explore all the elements of schooling that other horror films merely flirt with. And for a while, it does so very well. But this is a typical Eastern terror, and as if by mandate, the movie de-evolves into an incoherent series of increasingly illogical vignettes, all seeming to revolve around...you guessed, a dead girl with evil eyes and long black hair. After almost breaking tradition with its tale of illicit love and rivalry, we end up with a standard spook show - and not a very good one at that.

The DVD:
Three young girls attend a fancy art school with a mythical flight of stairs. The 28 stones that make up the incline are supposedly haunted. If you climb them carefully, concentrating on a goal or desire, and count aloud each step as you reach it, you will find a magical 29th stair at the top. There, you can make your wish and it will come true. However, your intentions must be pure, or the ramifications will be very harsh indeed.

So-hie and Ji-seong are ballerinas. Both would like to be chosen for a big competition, but So-hie appears to have the position locked up. After fat girl Hye-ju confesses that a trip to the wishing stairs made her skinny, Ji-seong goes for a climb. Sure enough, So-hie "accidentally" falls down and is injured. Ji-seong wins the competition, and a chance to go to Russia to study. So-hie is so despondent that she kills herself. Hye-ju, secretly in love with So-hie, is so despondent over her death that she makes another wish. In true "monkey's paw" tradition, she wants So-hie to return. But when the vengeful spirit arrives, she's got retribution, not friendship on her mind.

It is hard to say whether Wishing Stairs is a wasted opportunity or an inherently superficial idea taken to tedious extremes. The notion of young girls resorting to underhanded and evil tricks to defeat their academic adversary is nothing new. It's as much a part of any teen comedy as belching, toplessness and a rather retro view of morality. But Wishing Stairs wants to take the notion further, to involve the supernatural and the spirit world, and use both to fuel an otherworldly tale of jealousy and obsession. With such a wide canvas to cover, with so many plot possibilities, the movie shouldn't miss, right? It should simmer with scares, bouncing between the paranormal and the interpersonal with ease. Yet instead of growing more grave, Wishing Stairs kind of stalls. Instead of giving its specters a chance to shine, the story gets jumbled up in baffling motives, unclear ancillary elements, and an overall lack of real imagination.

Part of the problem falls squarely on the shoulders of first time director Jae-yeon Yun. At nearly 100 minutes, this film is far too long. It spends way too much time on the interesting communal dynamic between the students (filled with cliques, status and deep, dark secrets) and not enough preparing us for the poltergeists. The ghost story angle arrives after almost an hour, and is not really developed until the final 15 minutes. By then, we've become confused by the characters, aggravated by the lack of narrative progress, and are more or less left wondering what we should care about.

It is hard to sympathize with any of the girls here because, frankly, none of them seem sane enough to warrant our attention. This is more thriller than chiller, with the scares coming out of the psychological, not the physical realm. For a while, Yun keeps us going. We grow fascinated in the stair myth, wonder what will happen when it's misapplied, and await the karmic payback our miscreant little evildoers deserve. But when it does arrive, it's like watching Ju-On, Ringu, or Dark Water all over again. Apparently, everything in Asia is ghosts with ghoulishness on their undead minds.

Lack of originality aside, Wishing Stairs also has a very unclear sense of menace. If we are supposed to be afraid of certain characters in the film, the narrative shouldn't constantly careen between scares and sympathy. When Hye-ju becomes "possessed" by So-hie's spirit, we anticipate there being something more to it than just a chance for some overacting. But no, actress An Jo just affects the occasional vocal change, and we get lots of mirror shots showing So-hie where Hye-ju should be.

Certainly there is a sense of unease in what Hye-ju does, but a lot of her sinister edge is sheered off by some rather strange performance choices. Jo constantly puffs out her cheeks like a winded chipmunk, and we never know if she has a serious issue with her weight, or just a bad make-up job and a severe thespian tic. And then there is the whole lesbian undercurrent. It could be that Korean affection translates more strongly when brought to the West, but one does get the impression that some - or all - of these gals here were some members of a secret Sappho society, longing for each other as only lovers do. Of course, it's all left to the imagination, as nothing is really explained.

Indeed, Wishing Stairs may be the king of arcane concepts. Issues like the stairs, the ballet class, the hatred the other girls have for Ji-seong, Hye-ju's doll obsession and spooky drawings, as well as all the shots of statues, just don't compute. They are tossed at us at random, and never add up to anything other than a grand sense of aggravation. We'd like for Yun to stop once in a while and clarify something (she's got the TIME, after all). But no, we just get more moody tableaus of those enigmatic stairs, and doe-eyed Asian girls looking lithe in their uniforms.

Toward the end, when things are starting to pile up, Yun does attempt a kind of sort out. We learn the truth about a pair of toe shoes, realize that So-hie has a motive outside Hye-ju, and even get a few superb F/X sequences to up the eerieness. But naturally it all combines into nothing of real consequence. Characters are killed, fires are started, mysterious conversations are had and then...the movie laps itself and starts up all over again (with a new character coming to the school).

The lack of closure really hurts Wishing Stairs. What should be something really effective and evocative (once again, the school setting suffers by being underdeveloped and underutilized) just sits there, offering up some very familiar frights, only to then walk away semi-satisfied with itself. You get the impression that Yun understands what she's doing, and that the cast feels confident that they've delivered something devilish.

But Wishing Stairs is wishy-washy. It flounders its fear and confuses ephemeral with evil. Besides, if you've seen one creepy Asian girl with wet black hair and evil eyes jump cut crawling toward the camera in unearthly, unholy ways, you've seen them all. Wishing Stairs biggest problem is that it feels wholly derivative. Nothing about the story - except the stairs themselves - seems inventive, and the paranormal parameters utilized are boring. In the end, we have a movie that makes a lot of good -looking points, but never really gets beneath your skin.

The Video:
Tartan Video, which releases Wishing Stairs under its Asian Extreme label, does a nice job with the visual elements of the film. The 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen image has a lot of depth - especially in some of the windswept scenes taking place on the haunted stairs. Still, there are grain issues in the dark interior shots, and some of the colors seem subdued (especially the minimal amounts of blood). Overall the image is excellent and actually adds to the atmosphere of dread the film is striving for.

The Audio:
Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 - either standard surround or DTS - Wishing Stairs is very evocative from a sonic standpoint. The use of negative spatial elements really expand the aural landscape, and the subwoofer gets a real workout whenever the ballerinas jump and land on the reverberating wooden flooring. Overall, the subtitles do a good job of keeping the story flowing, and the Korean language has some interesting inflections and quirks. From a purely technical standpoint, this is a good looking and sounding motion picture.

The Extras:
Tartan really tricks out the DVD release of this title with some very worthy, and narratively necessary bonus features. You will learn a lot about the movie, elements not fully explained or even approached in the plot, while viewing the more than one hour of extra material here. First up is something called "Making of Wishing Stairs". This is really divided up into two features. First is a 30 minute EPK-style presentation that takes us behind the scenes of the Ghost School Trilogy and the creation of this particular film. We learn a lot about the backstory of the students, the secret emotions only hinted at in the film, and the underpinning agendas that have them so riled up and competitive in the first place. Four writers are credited with the script, so it's amazing that so much of this information failed to make it into the film. Director Yun also comments on how she views the film as a tragedy, not so much a spook show. Maybe this explains the movie's mixed message.

During the interviews, each actress explains the torments they had to go through - whether it was ballet lessons, extensive make-up fittings, or the physical requirements of the shoot. We get to see some of this in the section called "Director's Sketchbook and Notes". This portion has four parts, and deals with filming the dance scenes, how a fat suit was created and employed, the artwork that went into Hye-ju's diary, and the unusual musical score created for the film. Each sequence is interesting, and again helps illuminate some of the movie's more muddled points. Add in a trailer for Wishing Stairs, as well as a collection of ads for other Tartan releases, and you have a selection of content which actually provides clarifying context for what is an occasionally baffling movie.

Final Thoughts:
When the slasher movie first became popular, it was relatively common to bash the many imitators coming to the newfound fad. Just like in any genre, a certain few films set the standard, while the rest must play catch up, or copycat, the best they can. For those who find the entire Asian horror trend too scary for words, who wince at the thought of another film as frightening as The Ring, or scream at the subtle scares offered in The Grudge, Wishing Stairs will be right up your angst alley. It has mountains of mood and a real sense of style about it.

But except for a few scattered moments, and an F/X filled ending, the film itself is a letdown. Director Jae-yeon Yun just can't figure out how to use her high school setting for anything other than the usual "hate her" ideals. Had she found a way to explore the underlining evil in such cliquish concepts, had she moved away from all the black haired gal ghost bunkum, we might have something worth savoring here. Instead, Wishing Stairs is an interesting idea poorly proffered. And once again, education proves that it can teach almost anything to anyone - except, how to make macabre and matriculation combine into something superb...and scary.

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