Death Bell stars Lee Beom-soo in his first horror film role, and K-pop singer Nam Gyu-ri in her acting debut.

Set in a Korean high school, the film's native title refers to gosa, the important midterm exams that all students are required to sit.

A few days after incidents involving a student, Beom sees a ghost haunt his paper, and class teacher Hwang Chang-wook discovers scars on his hand.

The film closes with I-na seeing that she topped the class ranking, and it is implied that Beom's attacks were due to her being possessed by Ji-won since the beginning.

[10] Derek Elley of Variety found Death Bell to have a "neat concept" with "enough shocks and gore to keep genre addicts contented", and commented, "After a fairly conventional half-hour setup, the pic keeps the tension high with tight cutting and a no-flab script that ups the student body count in some especially inventive ways.

But the journey there is fine, with Lee, better known for comedy, interestingly cast as the students' tough prof."[7] Kyu Hyun Kim of Koreanfilm.org was more critical of the film, saying, "Death Bell annoyingly combines prettified, slick visual filmmaking (but with no real depth) and gag-inducing torture porn excesses: it's simultaneously tepid and lackluster on the one hand and gross and offensive on the other"; he also regarded the screenplay as a "fetid mess" with an unconvincing central premise, but gave credit to the performance of Lee Beom-soo.

[11] A review for Twitch also labelled the film's premise as "ridiculous", going on to say, "Lee Beom-Soo certainly tries, and the tempo keeps building decently until the end, but there's really no vibe to it.

[4] Released on 6 August 2008 in 366 theatres nationwide, the film grossed $2,370,785 and received 575,231 admissions on its opening weekend, placing it third at the local box office.

[15] Death Bell had looked set to become the second most popular Korean horror film after A Tale of Two Sisters, which attracted more than 3 million viewers in 2003; however, admissions of 1,636,149 (as of 14 September 2008) were less than those recorded by R-Point and Wishing Stairs.