Ups and Downs of Wishing

[setsuled]

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A girls' art school is cast into turmoil when some students start using a magical staircase in 2003's The Wishing Stairs (여고괴담 3: 여우계단). Sometimes, I see a movie and I get the impression the screenwriter and/or director passionately hated all the characters. All the girls in this movie are assholes, giving one a sense of general misanthropy. Combined with the pretty standard Japanese and Korean horror effects (the girl with black hair covering her face, the weird crawling, etc) nicked from The Ring and David Lynch, it was kind of a tedious film to get through.

The plot primarily concerns three girls; Jin-sung, So-hee, and Hye-ju. Jin-sung and So-hee are best friends but Jin-sung is starting to find So-hee's manic behaviour kind of annoying. So-hee's possibly heartfelt affections are oddly aggressive and she seems to delight in frustrating Jin-sung. So-hee crawls into Jin-sung's window uninvited, gives her an unflattering hairstyle, and takes a picture. When Jin-sung idly walks along a stair railing, So-hee grabs her ankle from behind, nearly causing her to fall.

So-hee and Jin-sung are studying ballet and So-hee is the better dancer, meaning Jin-sung won't get a chance to get into a good ballet school. Meanwhile, Hye-ju, whose chubbiness is played for broad, obnoxious comical effect, discovers the magic wishing stairs; if you ascend the stairs while counting them, an extra step appears at the top and your wish will be granted. Hye-ju wishes to lose weight and she does. Hearing this, Jin-sung wishes to get into a good ballet school. But as with the monkey's paw, the wishes come at dreadful costs. Hye-ju gets bulimia and So-hee falls and dies.

The whole school becomes jealous of Jin-sung and starts pulling pranks on her. Meanwhile, the ghost of So-hee possesses Hye-ju. Pranks turn into murders. I mainly came away with the feeling that it would be exhausting being around these people.

Wishing Stairs is availableon Bilibili.