My thoughts pretty much echo those of everyone else. I was really hoping for a high-tension, frightening episode. Aside from jumping a bit in the beginning, it didn't happen for me. Reading over complaints about a series can dull the enjoyment for others, so I'll keep my negative remarks behind spoiler tags:
Spoiler for Criticisms of this episode & 2nd half of the series:
My major problem is with how they presented the students becoming murderous. We knew that they were all really stressed and under a lot of pressure, and I figured that it would come to the route of students all trying to kill each other. Instead, we were given a sequence of chase scenes as Mei specifically was targeted. That could have been good, except that the murderous students were drawn to become totally psychotic (and sounded that way, too). It didn't fit with what the series had been building up to. I would think that they should have been a bit more reluctant. It also didn't help that some of the transitions weren't evident. Takako ("booby glasses girl" as someone referred to her) seemed pretty down-to-earth and "with it" leading up to this episode, and then she totally lost it. Akazawa (red twin-tails girl) mentions that Takako was behaving strangely ever since the beach outing, but we sure didn't see it!
I also feel a bit that the series has cheapened itself in the second half. The beginning had a sophisticated air of mystery, where people were behaving a certain way and things were happening all for a reason. In the second half, we have cheap tactics. They get the tape that explains how to end the curse, but it breaks right before the critical part? Mei knows who the "other" is, but is interrupted right before she can say it, and doesn't get a chance to say it during this episode? That's cheap.
I don't get into saying how I would have rewritten a series. It's just that based on the first half, I had very high expectations that these past few episodes did not meet. I'm very hopeful that the final episode will give a masterful end to this series, but if it follows the same trend...