A Chain of Cursed Murders (2006)

There's not a whole lot out of the 'norm' to be found with "A Chain of Cursed Murders"; as it pretty much falls in line with many of the other supernatural 'tech-horror' movies that came out of Japan around this time - like, "One Missed Call" and "Pulse". Not to say it's one of the worst. It's actually a tad better than a lot of these types of flicks I've seen over the years. However, it's just, in essence, more of the same.

Some schoolgirls start receiving a mysterious text message from someone looking for a "criminal" who had raped and beaten a pregnant girl. It claims that if they fail to forward the message to a certain number of people, they'll be murdered. They initially write it off as bullshit, until one of them turns up dead. Then a few more girls are brutally killed so one of them pairs up with her perverted teacher to track down the source of the message before it's her turn.

Aside from the basic premise, I found the end reveal(s) to be a bit clunky and convoluted. That said, there's a few fairly tense scenes and one decent and kinda gory kill - though most of it is off-screen. In all, it's not quite as cliched as a lot of movies of it's kind, but there's really nothing here that's all that original or enthralling. I'd say it's one you can safely pass up.