Memento Mori

Memento Mori followed up the phenomenal success of Whispering Corridors (Korea’s highest grossing movie of 1998) with a return to the high school horror genre. Dispiritingly, original director Park Ki-Hyung turned down the offer to follow up his hit and so a pair of recent Korean Film Academy graduates, Kim Tae-Young and Min Kyu-Dong who had only a handful of well-received shorts to their name, were employed instead. It’s hard not to make a Western analogy here and compare them to some wet-behind-the-ears promos director at the helm of some blatant cash-in sequel, yet to do so would be unfair. Rather than coming up with a mere calling card with which to show off any potential technical flair, Kim and Min and instead produced a more than worthy successor. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Memento Mori is noticeably the superior offering.

Indeed, there’s much which is surprising about this venture. Whilst it undoubtedly demonstrates a technical prowess, it also does something fairly rare for a horror sequel and focuses in on the characters. Kim and Min aren’t afraid to slow things down and subdue the normal genre impulses: the scoring is reserved and often limited to a sole piano; the characters are allowed to develop at their own pace; and it often appears as though we are hardly watching a horror film at all.



To reveal anything of Memento Mori’s plot would be to do the film a disservice. Kim and Min (who also collaborated on the screenplay) are so intricate, especially during the expositional stages, in their assemblage of the various strands that it’s best simply to mention some of the details around which the film revolves. As with Whispering Corridors it’s set at a Korean girls’ school (one which it leaves on only one occasion creating a palpable sense of claustrophobia) and involves a vengeful ghost, but it’s also far more delicate in its conception. It may involve lesbianism, telepathy, an unwanted pregnancy and a secret diary, yet there’s nothing remotely spurious about its proceedings.

Rather the film is grounded in some fine naturalistic performances. Unlike Whispering Corridors we’re never tempted to pigeon hole the girls (or their teachers for that matter) into easy categories simply because they continually demonstrate three dimensions. Moreover, Memento Mori requires this facet from them given how playful its structure can be; had the film not demonstrated this root realism then no doubt it would be hard to stomach its more fantastical elements. That said, it’s also true that Kim and Min aren’t expecting us to connect with their characters too much. They maintain a directorial distance throughout, continually going for high or removed angles, and we’re asked to do likewise. As such we’re able to accept the girls’ more pretentious activities without ever having to indulge in them ourselves.

All of which points more towards drama than it does horror, and this is the reason why Memento Mori works as well as it does. Because it focuses on more prominently on its dramatic elements, the film never feels the urge to signpost or build up its scares. Rather it’s able to abruptly throw them in and is all the more effective as a result. If there is a problem, however, then it’s that Kim and Min are guilty of fluffing the big pay-off. You often get the sense that the pair didn’t actually wish to make a horror film at all and the manner in which the ending seems almost tacked on appears to confirm this. Indeed, it seems so out of place that many of the strengths which have been demonstrated beforehand simply evaporate. That said, up until this point Memento Mori is an often excellent little picture and as a directorial debut demonstrates immense promise.



The Disc

Whilst Tartan’s Region 0 handling of Memento Mori marks an improvement over their Whispering Corridors, it still demonstrates a number of problems. Most prominently, we’re once again stuck with an NTSC to PAL transfer which lets down an otherwise fine print. Ordinarily it would demonstrate a fine clarity and great colours, but here is rendered overly saturated, a touch soft and demonstrating often over edge enhancement. The soundtrack fares better with choices of Dolby Digital 2.0 and 5.1 mixes plus DTS. All three come across as technically fine, though it’s one of the latter two to go for. They may demonstrate scant difference, but both prove especially effective during the more over the top moments. Of course, in this respect the DD2.0 offering is therefore rendered largely redundant.

As for extras, here we find a Korean produced 25-minute featurette titled, somewhat grammatically incorrectly, ‘Making Film’. A combination of B-roll footage and talking heads, this is a fairly standard EPK package but proves itself to be agreeable enough. Talking primarily to the young actors it goes to demonstrate that their considered performances were no fluke, but rather intelligently conceived. Elsewhere we also find a music video which is nothing of the sort (rather it compiles various clips over an excerpt from the score), plus a handful of trailers for this and other Tartan “Asia Extreme” releases.

Note that the English subtitles on the ‘Making Film’ featurette are optional.