Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Peereddi I was totally surprised at how great this film.You could feel your paranoia rise as the film went on and as you gradually learned the details of the real situation.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

manuelasaez I watched this movie on a whim without knowing anything about it beforehand, and I was pleasantly surprised at how gory, disturbing and downright entertaining the movie ended up being. The film follows a similar set up to many of the recent Japanese/Korean high school films; Students are locked in a school and picked off one by one by an unseen force. This time, however, the force is asking the brightest and most intelligent students to solve questions in order to save the lives of their peers. It's a great set-up that flows nicely between each act, with some great practical effects and some disturbing and downright horrifying scenes involving the teens. The acting was great all around, save for a few of the students that seemed to not have much experience or didn't take their roles too seriously. And while the movie seemed to get a bit confusing towards the final act, it all came together nicely in a twist that was not only unexpected, but very well executed. My only gripe with this film was that it could have been a bit more graphic with its depiction of death. I wanted to see each person as they were being killed, if only to increase the tension and disturbing element of an already pretty effective set-up. Overall, one of the better South Korean horror films I have seen, and definitely recommended for anyone who enjoys seeing annoying High School kids get their just deserts. A success, as far as I'm concerned.

christopher-underwood Korean torture slasher set in a school and the torture element actually adds something different to the usual Korean/Japanese school gore fest movie. I was very surprised to find that these short set pieces were very much the best thing about the film. Nasty, gruesome, suspenseful but not drawn out to the point where the audience is also tortured, these were well executed. The rest of the film was much more formulaic and somewhat confusing. The elite students having to solve some question or one of their number dies before them was a fine idea but for some reason was made over complicated and it seemed that right or wrong the victim still got it . I didn't really care about anybody, so as one after the other died it just became a bit of a carrousel , a bloody one, granted. A great start and not a bad finish, surprisingly high production standards apparent but I just lost some interest somewhere along the way.

vainblood This is supposed to be a horror movie but it's not really scary. It has some suspense however which can make it worth watching and it's more like a gory slasher similar to "Scream" than a ghost story. Having said that I'm not excluding any ghostly presence in the movie. It's simply up to you to find out. The actors are good, at least the main characters but the rest is just average.The big disappointment comes later in the movie when the director is trying to tie everything together. The script just fails to make a trustworthy impression and you are suddenly very aware that you are only watching a movie when the characters starts behaving in weird ways and doesn't act at all how you would expect them to in their current situation.Unexpected events are good in horror movies but not in this case, where it's only confusing but like I said in the beginning, the suspense is there so it's not really a bad movie.

Coventry Meanwhile it's been more than three months since I watched "Death Bell" at the Belgian Festival of Fantastic Films, but for some reason it must have escaped everyone's attention here at IMDb, because the film didn't receive its very own page until now. Since it's been quite long, and since I watched a whole lot of other crap in the meantime, I'm glad I took some notes and wrote down impressions after seeing the film, otherwise I'm afraid I wouldn't have remembered that much. By that I certainly don't mean that "Death Bell" is a bad film. Quite the contrary, it's a very amusing horror flick with exhilarating gore and a dazzling fast pace. Originality, however, isn't the film's biggest trump as it borrows plot ideas and stylistic elements from various other and more famous horror movies. "Death Bell" somewhat describes itself as "Saw" meets "Battle Royale", with a bunch of high school students and their teachers desperately trying to escape the imaginative death traps of a maniacal killer. Twenty of the most intelligent, but also sickly competitive and pompous students of a prominent Seoul high school attend a special exam held on a Saturday. Suddenly classical music plays through the speakers and the television monitor displays images of one missing student trapped in an aquarium slowly filling up with water. The exits are sealed, the contact with the outside world is cut off and the group finds themselves subjected to the lethal and perverted games of a deranged killer. But who is he and what are his motives? Co-writer and director Chang (who was a guest at the festival and appears to be incredibly young) has obviously watched and studied a whole lot of contemporary popular horror movies and knows exactly what it takes to please a large crowd of fans. The death traps are complex and implausible – like the ones in all the "Saw" movies – but they definitely guarantee extended moments of suspense and a lot of gruesome bloodshed. The make-up and sound effects are fantastic, so if you have the opportunity to see this film in a theater or with luxurious home cinema equipment, you definitely will be overwhelmed. The characters are typical Asian high school students; like they appear in numerous movies, but the film does it best to provide as many backgrounds and little personality details that are also relevant. Considering the subject matter, and exactly like "Saw", the script is often incoherent and extremely implausible (example: how could one individual plan such a hi- tech and accurate large-scaled massacre) but you easily are willing to overlook that thanks to the entertainment value. The identity of the killer and his reasons are quite predictable as well, but then again, this is a film that primarily relies on inventive shocks and outrageous gore.