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Death Bell is a Korean mystery thriller film made in 2008.

During final exams at Chang-in School, the school is placed in lockdown. One by one, students are tortured and killed by a mysterious person. In order to make it out alive, a group of highly intelligent students must answer a series of questions. As they spend more time on these questions, answers about a young girl's death slowly emerge.

In 2010, Death Bell 2: Bloody Camp was filmed. However, instead of continuing the story of the first film, it relocates to a different school with different characters and a different murder mystery.


Provides Examples Of:

  • Accidental Murder: The reason behind the killer's plot in the sequel. Some children slammed a girl's head against a concrete floor while bullying her.
  • Attempted Rape: This happened with Tae-yeon in the sequel.
  • Big Bad: Mr. Kim, a.k.a Hwang Chang-Wook, was the one who killed Kim Ji-Won.
  • Bring Me My Brown Pants: Myung-Hyo wets herself when a body falls from the ceiling in the auditorium.
  • Caught on Tape: Ji-Won accidentally videos her own murder when she drops her phone while being strangled.
  • Cruel and Unusual Death: Whoo boy
    • Hye-Young is drowned in a rectangular tank.
    • Dong-Hyuk is locked in a cage and covered in wax.
    • Cha Jae-Wook dies from blood loss and having flower petals stuffed down his throat.
    • Yoo Soo-Jin is stuffed in a washer.
  • Cut Phone Lines: The killer cuts all the phone lines in the school, steals all of the students' mobile phones, and sabotages the teachers'.
  • Deus Ax Machina: When Mr. Kim goes berserk during the memorial service, he grabs a fire axe from a case inside the auditorium and starts attacking the crowd.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Ina had a dream in the beginning relating to Ji-Won.
  • Drowning Pit: The first girl to be murdered is drowned in a glass tank that slowly fills with water.
  • Epileptic Flashing Lights: Happens when the students investigate the girls' dorms.
    • Happens again in the sequel when the lights in the classroom go out.
  • Faint in Shock: One of the girls faints when a body drops out of the ceiling in the auditorium.
  • For Doom the Bell Tolls: Every time the murderer has this play whenever a new question has been prepared and a new person has been captured.
  • Hooks and Crooks: The boy carrying the mobile phones is snagged through the ankle with a hook and then dragged up into the ceiling.
  • I See Dead People: Cho Beom, the boy who was slowly going crazy as the movie went on, was seeing images of Ji-Won. It turns out that he saw her being strangled, but made no attempt to save her. His guilt was driving him insane.
  • Lipstick-and-Load Montage: After sneaking out of school, Ina and Myung-Hyo change into clubbing outfits and apply makeup before going to the club.
  • Mood Whiplash: We go from discovering Beom with a corpse to seeing Ina and Myung-Hyo dancing at the club.
    • Another one happens in the sequel when Se-Hee has a dream about playing piano with Tae-Yeon to seeing an eyeless corpse.
  • Moral Myopia: The killer wants to punish the killer of their daughter Ji-Won. They achieve it by causing the deaths of several innocent students who had nothing to do with it.
  • Only Smart People May Pass: The killer's questions are incredibly complicated, and every time the protagonists fail to solve one, another student dies.
  • Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Ina's black hair and white skin make her very attractive.
  • Sadist Teacher: Mr. Lee is unusually aggressive with the students.
  • Self-Offense: A spooked Miss Choi swings at an opening door when she is searching the deserted school. It is the security guard and she buries the nails in the plank she is wielding into his palm.
  • String Theory: When the students find the room where Cho Beom has been living, the walls are covered in pieces of cards linked by strings.
  • Taking You with Me: Mr. Kim, after realizing what the whole setup was about, claimed that he wasn't going down alone. Translation: he'd rather have everyone in the school killed before giving himself up.
  • Torture Porn: Some of the deaths could be viewed as this.
  • Unwilling Suspension: The killer hoists Myung-Hyo off the floor by one ankle and leaves her hanging there. And then drops her to her death.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: When the mutilated body drops out of the ceiling in the auditorium, one of the background students visibly throws up.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ji-Won's parents. All they wanted was to find out who killed their daughter. Yet, they killed several innocent students who had nothing to do with her death and kept everyone trapped in the school.
  • Whole-Plot Reference: The premise of gruesome revenge being inflicted towards those who victimized a young girl, and the ending, are kind of similar to Misao.
  • Wrench Whack: When searching the school for the killer, Mr. Kim grabs a pipe wrench from a storeroom and carries it as a weapon for the rest of the film (for all the good it does him).

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