Rating: ****
Starring: In-sook Choi, Da-Geon and Sung Jin
At Seoul's Chang-in High School, examinations not only mark how good a student is, but also how well they will be treated in their current and future phases in life. Names will be made. Names will be trashed. It all depends on how well you score in your papers.
It is the end of the school year and those lucky enough to hoard enough a good mark on their exams will have the chance to attend a Saturday study session to prepare them for a test competing with foreign schools. Our lead girl Ina is among the confident ones sure of her passing, living up the night before the weekend letting off some steam by partying with friends and being flirted upon by the school heart throb.
However, Ina has troubling matters eating her inside, apparently linked to what appears to be the school's very own ghost story, that of a murdered girl who seems to be haunting her dreams and terrorize one of her classmates to the point that he goes insane.
At the day of the study sessions, unfortunately, all manners of awry break loose: during their lessons, TVs suddenly show one of the students enclosed inside a giant fish tank. A voice on the P.A. system warns them and the trio of teachers supervising the classes that there will be deadly consequences if anyone tries to leave. They all will be participating in a series of death games, you see, and if they fail, a captured student will die. With a pattern in each riddle, it all becomes clear that all of this has something to do with a tragic murder from years passed and whoever was responsible for it needs to be weeded out.Death Bell (2008) was the very reason whenever Korea makes a slasher, I listen.; while not the first Korean slasher I saw in my early years (that one goes to the creepy, High Tension (2003)-inspired To Sir, With Love (2006)), Death Bell (2008) is regarded by many as one of the better releases from Asia, a genuine cult classic in the making, and I couldn't agree more!
Influenced by the SAW movies and Japan's action-thriller Battle Royale (2000), Death Bell (2008) may start off like the typical Asian ghost flick wherein long-haired phantoms terrorize hapless teens through red-herring nightmares and spooky supernatural visions, the story shifts to that of a new age slasher as soon as the terror weekend begins, shuffling down crazy plot twists and a glamorized bodycount, packing along a generous helping of gore, grue and torment to go with the classic trappings of a killer stalking around and attacking teens. This familiarity with the slasher genre, ironically, also meant we're tripping on plot holes left unanswered even if the story provided flashbacks in an attempt to fill out the gaps, as well as see our victims devolve into doing dumb behavior like splitting up from a group, making them good as dead. (And to think, these kids are supposed to be smart..)
Still, even with its flaws, Death Bell (2008) entertains us with slick thrills and sick kills, playing with imaginative traps and torture methods from carving letters in human flesh, death by candle wax, and a spin-dry killing with box cutter blades. Exaggerated at the least, but they can get really intense thanks to the film's impressive soundtrack and editing, highly worthwhile for gore hounds everywhere, especially those who has an affinity for the blood drenched death-machines of the SAW series. The cultural background also gave this film a breath of fresh air in its plotting, tackling an altogether different angle to its mystery and even a bit of drama between the students. And just as you thought things are figured out and resolved, the film pulls the wool over our eyes with twists upon twists, granting us a hell of a reveal to who the killer is (and has been all this time) and ending everything with a grandeur dose of catharsis.
As a cliché-bound horror movie, Death Bell (2008) passes that test with flying colors, though, technically it does so with a fair deal of gusto and flair that makes a slasher movie simply fun; gore, scares, thrills, nubile teenagers screaming, and a dab of drama with cheese. Not exactly as emotionally heart-wrenching as Bedevilled (2010), or as creepy as To Sir, With Love (2006), but as a thrill ride from start to finish, you can't go wrong with this class cursed for doom!Bodycount:
1 female slowly drowned inside a fish tank
1 male had letters carved on his body and exposed to dripping candle wax, dropped to his death
1 male found stabbed to death
1 male had words carved on his body, later found dead
1 female tumble-dried in a washing machine
1 male stabbed in the gut with a sharpened tile
1 male brained to death with a rock
1 female snared on a leg and dropped to her death
1 female strangled with a rope
1 female strangled to death (flashback)
1 male hacked to death with a hatchet
1 male stabbed, blood splash seen (flashback)
Total: 12
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