The school tannoy has been taken over by the assailant and they/it has started to announce, one-by-one, a bunch of sadistic 'puzzles' which the group must solve in order to stop the grizzly murder of each of them (which they soon find out, is in order of their 'ranking' in the school exams)! Hang on in there though, as there is some logic to all this and the satisfying reveal in the finale puts all the pieces together.
In the meantime, we, along with the students, have no idea what's what, why or whom - but get together and try to solve the puzzles, revealing clues as to what the heck it's all about! The murders and traps are somewhat inventive and there's lots of blood and gore being hurled around in the process as they are picked off one-by-one, with fairly good visual effects. Oh yes, they are not allowed to leave the school or they get killed, this is an evening, so nobody is around from outside (though I did wonder why parents didn't wonder why their kids had not come home!) and all land/cellphones have been cut off!
So yes, it creates a theatre of gore which, on the face of it, dubiously and at a stretch, nobody can get away from. Why the kids don't just all stay together in the same room so they can't be picked off, I don't know. But let's not nitpick - as plot holes there may be, but it doesn't take away the fun of it all.
We are led to wonder if there's something supernatural and ghostly going on as a pupil who had been murdered in the school a couple of years back kind of appears to some of the students, but it's exam time and the students are under a lot of stress - so we're not really sure if the visions of the 'ghost' are real or down to some anxiety/mental health crisis. Certainly not all the students see the visions.
I won't reveal any more as it will spoil the outcome, but it's certainly fun - and I love the Korean culture in terms of the way they speak, especially the girls - the intonation in their language and voice is lovely to hear as so different to our boring English! It's also funny in places, far-fetched in others, annoyingly badly acted by some, but not others - along with much handheld camera work. The sound effects and music is nicely done, supportive of the tone and suspense here and there - and it's quite nicely shot, claustrophobic often, all inside the school.
I don't know the director Hong-Seung Yoon, nor any of the actors but a number of them do a decent enough and convincing job. The DVD that I saw had subtitles, but you can also get a dubbed version. It's not streaming anywhere that I can see at time of writing, I'm afraid, but the DVD can be bought at the likes of CeX and Music Magpie in the UK, used - or probably new elsewhere - and no doubt it'll pop into streaming services at some point. Suggest you watch out for it!
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