During the original J-horror boom of the late 1990s and early 2000s, South Korea had its own spurt of ghostly genre fare at the time with the “Whispering Corridors” films leading the charge. When the first film arrived in 1998, it was concurrent with the Japanese wave being produced at the time and carried along nicely as a fine counterbalance as it eventually ended up spawning several non-related follow-ups that centered around ghostly happenings at an all-girls school. After a few years of inactivity, now first-time director Lee Mi-young resurrects the franchise with enjoyable results in this latest entry.
Arriving at Gwangju High School for girls, students Ha-yeon (Kim Hyun-soo), Ye-ji (Lee Ji-won), So-yeon (Choi Ri), Mi-seok (Seo Hye-won), and Jae-yun (Park Se-hyun) meet up with Noh Eun-hee (Kim Seo-hyeong) the new vice principal to the school. It doesn't take long for the girls to discover that she has connections to an incident that happened in the school in the past which manifests in a series of bizarre visions and hallucinations she has to a classmate from the past that killed herself at school. When it begins to interfere with her work as a series of bizarre encounters and confrontations are being reported throughout the campus, she realizes the connection she has with the events of the past and must make peace with
Overall, “The Humming” has a lot to like about it. Where it works best is in the setup involving the systemic abuse that takes place at the school. Rather than go overboard detailing the ghostly activities present like the other entries have done, instead, the focus is more on the treatment of the students. Major plotlines involving the need for acceptance, acting out with false claims of neglect and sexual harassment as well as abuse stemming from the rejection of unwanted attraction between a student and teacher, manage to drive a lot of the running time. Even more so, when these allegations are proven true they're often met with skepticism and the need to turn a blind eye to the infraction out of fear that the incident will scar their reputation. When all of these factors are applied alongside the usual standard and drive from the teachers to get the best grades and citizenship out of their students, there's some chilling work here at times.
Likewise, “The Humming” also has a lot to like with the slow advent of supernatural hauntings throughout here. With the main setup focused on the past haunting in the school following Eun-hee for what happened to them as kids, there are some genuinely creepy moments here. This flashback is quite creepy, with the incident starting the hauntings in the rest of the film as well as getting the first few incidents involving the ghost stalking students. These include the library encounter as well as the creepy chase through the storage room where the first clear sighting of the bone-chilling design of the ghost makes for a horrifying sight. Taking great advantage of the atmosphere involving the school and some fine jump-scares with the spirit coming for people when least expected, these elements all manage to provide a lot of enjoyable elements.
All that said, there are some issues with “The Humming”. This mostly comes along from the more pronounced focus away from the ghost for long periods of time to feature all the extracurricular activities on and off-campus. The emergence of the incident where one of the teachers filmed himself sexually abusing and then blackmailing several students with threats about who leaked what and who would be responsible, creates the majority of the tension within. The resulting scandal and everyone's reacion to it, from the students using it as leverage to exert their social status over everyone else, the faculty trying to keep it quiet for risk of damaging their reputation, and the guilty party resorting to whatever means possible to keep it a secret combine into an engaging time overall.
However, none of these factors are enough to overcome the fact that the ghost isn't that prominent in the film. It shows up on only a few occasions and isn't a very big part of the story overall. Despite the scenes being creepy and chilling when they occur, far too much of “Humming” is spent sorting out the troubling accusations and scandals surrounding the student body. They seem to be well aware of the being and are openly searching for it at several points but it never goes anywhere and is dropped for long parts of the film's running time. This is especially true once a secondary reveal occurs in the final minutes involving a series of incidents in the past completely unrelated to the main storyline. The truth about what happened to the girls in the school and how the particular room in the school came to be haunted involves a secondary plotline that comes out of nowhere and ties into Eun-hee's trauma rather than explaining what's going on. Some might not be that turned off by these scenes since they're still fun and well-filmed, but for those wanting ghostly action it does come up short.
A generally enjoyable return to form for the franchise that has a lot more going on than expected, “The Humming” is an enjoyable entry while still having some flaws to hold it down. Fans of the style or the series' previous entries will have the most fun here.
