by Marc Patterson

This October is looking to be pretty sweet for Halloween scares on television, especially for those of you with some VOD service as well. Come that November bill and that’s when the real pain will set in. We just caught wind of the latest twisted horror flick to come out of South Korea, a little title called Deathbell.

In Deathbell there’s no getting Saved by the Bell. (Bad joke I know, but it sure would be cool to see Screech get his comeuppance after all these years wouldn’t it?) So is the film a cautionary tale for schoolkids? A demented tale of child abuse? All of the above? The trailer points towards a combination of a twisted game (a la SAW) and a vengeance fueled ghost story, which is a trademark of Korean horror cinema. We’ve got the official synopsis below and a couple of trailers. Deathbell hits VOD services October 14 from IFC.

Synopsis:
On a Saturday, 170 days before college entrance exam, a special class for 20 top students is held at school. The 20 intelligent students include the loyal high school girl Inah, the bad-boy hunk Kang-Hyun, Ina’s best friend Myung-Hyo, the top-of-school paranoiac Hye-Young, the hallucination schizophrenic Jo-Beom, the second top insomniac Dong-Hyuk, the timid third top student Jae-Wook, and the over-sensitive sixth top student Su-Jin. The only other people left in school together with the 20 students are: the popular teacher Chang-wook, the new English teacher So-young, and the student manager Chi-young. But in the middle of class “For Elise” rings from the speaker and the TV in classroom shows the top student Hye-young trapped in the water rising tank, screaming and struggling to breathe. And an unidentified voice asks the answer to a mid-term exam question that will cost Hye-young’s life. Nowhere to run, and only 20 students and 3 teachers are in school. The bloody exams start once again for them

Take a look at the two trailers below. Both have a decidedly different look and feel to them giving a pretty well rounded look at what to expect.

Source: Dread Central/IFC Films