BiFan 2025 Review: TEACHING PRACTICE: IDIOT GIRLS AND SCHOOL GHOST 2, Horror-Comedy Reaches Delightful New Heights

A year after their first outing, the "Idiot Girls and School Ghost" return to the Korean competition section of the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BiFan) with Teaching Practice, a bigger and better sequel which builds on the ample passion and promise displayed by director Kim Min-ha last summer.

To be clear, the idiot girls and school ghost are different in this instalment of what has now become a horror anthology. In fact, the main character this time isn't even a student; she's a teacher, and her name is Kang Eun-kyung, charismatically played by Han Seon-hwa, seen last year in the Tootsie-esque summer hit Pilot.

Eun-kyung is a trainee teacher excited to be reporting for her first day on the job at the school she went to as a teenager. Though bubbly with her colleagues (one of whom was her teacher), she relishes in laying down the law with her new charges in the classroom. However, she is quickly frustrated by a trio of red-robbed students with Japanese names who have achieved some of the best grades in the country and take money from fellow students also wishing for good grades.

The reason for their scholastic success (and the financial contributions they receive) is that they commune with the dead, entering a spirit world version of the school, where they are continually challenged by a series of eccentric ghost teachers. Though she doesn't believe them at first, Eun-kyung soon finds herself in the spirit world, where she tries to save the girls before it's too late.

The first film, named School Anniversary, was a loving parody of K-horror and J-horror milestones such as Whispering Corridors, The Ring and The Grudge. The jokes and references were very much the point of the affair, and the story at times felt like an afterthought.

The clever and delightful jokes remain in Teaching Practice, but while Director Kim still wears his screen horror influences on his sleeves, the style and tone have moved far beyond parody and mimicry. More important still, this film crafts real characters who move through an engaging story that now boasts a properly fleshed-out supernatural mythology.

School Anniversary, a thoroughly charming micro-budget indie, had a surprisingly decent run in limited release in Korea, where it sold 30,000 tickets. But those kinds of numbers won't cut it for this much bigger sequel, which populates richly detailed sets with a couple of recognisable character actors.

This may be why the Korean title for this impressive and entertaining follow-up is merely Teaching Practice, ensuring that any shy new viewers looking to matriculate into the world of "Idiot Girls and School Ghost" won't be scared off.

Best of luck to Kim and company as we eagerly look forward to a third chapter in this wonderful horror-comedy franchise.