A Blood Pledge

A Catholic chapel in a girl's high school, in a stormy dark night. Four young faces are illuminated by candlelight. Friends who have made a pact to commit suicide, they proceed to climb to the roof of the building. However, only one of them, Eon-joo (,), jumps to her death, her mangled body to be discovered by her shocked sister Jeong-eon (Yoo Shin-ae). The surviving members of the pact, So-yi (Son Eun-seo), Eun-young (Song Min-jeong) and Yu-jin (Oh Yeon-seo), begin to sense the presence of the dead Eon-joo.

A Blood Pledge The redoubtable Whispering Corridors series, not only one of the few successful film franchises in Korean cinema but also a platform through which many talented actresses have been launched into stardom (Gong Hyo-jin, Kim Min-seon, Song Ji-hyo and Kim Ok-vin to name just a few), is celebrating its tenth anniversary in 2009. Given the disastrous environment in which Korean filmmakers have struggled in the last few years, perhaps we should just be thankful that the series was able to come back at all. Unfortunately, the fifth installment is probably the most generic and lackluster of the lot.

This does not mean that A Blood Pledge is devoid of any merit. Director Lee Jong-yong, promoted from assistant work for Park Chan-wook's JSA, while taking on an ultra-topical subject of group suicide, goes for the jugular. I find his refusal to burden the film with superficial discussions of the malaise of Korean school system as well as his decision to resolutely stick to the conventions of Gothic horror (this is the kind of movie in which an important prop symbolizing political power is a key to the Catholic chapel, preserved in a velvet-inlaid, ornate jewel box) rather admirable. Sure, some of the scare tactics are obvious, but what do you expect from a summer horror film?

And yet, director Lee also takes some critical missteps, avoided by all other helmers of the series so far. He over-burdens his young actresses with reams of convoluted, emotive expository dialogue, few of which actually serve to enlighten the viewers. Poor girls struggle through the breathless sentences like rookie recruits in a boot camp with extra-heavy backpacks: only Yoo Shin-ae emerges relatively unscathed. Despite his visible effort to construct a decent psychological mystery, director Lee's failure to create three-dimensional characters leave us rather blas? about the ultimate motivation behind Eon-joo's haunting. Finally, the film has two or three truly embarrassing moments of non-special effects, including a laughable "exploding head" gag that I sincerely hope will be deleted from the export version.

While not the worst Korean horror film in recent memory by a long shot (Are you kidding? Oetori? Death Bell?), A Blood Pledge is nonetheless a disappointment. Lacking the elegant lyricism of Memento Mori, the disturbing metaphysical implications of Voice, or even the lurid psychodrama of Wishing Stairs, A Blood Pledge is an obtusely "sincere" horror film in a series known for a remarkable mixture of ingeniously induced frisson and unexpectedly moving art-house touches.

English subtitle:soon
See online:HERE