I've been a fan of horror my entire life, and have enjoyed finding new horror films to seek out, a search that has led me to some wonderful gems that don't get enough attention. One film that I had heard recommended over and over again was Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. However, I was never able to find a copy of it. It seemed like DVD's of the film were few and far between, and whenever I thought to look for it it was never available on streaming. It became a film that I desperately wanted to watch but never could. However, with their new Blu-ray release Second Sight have given me the opportunity to finally see it, and even with all of the hype and whispers I've heard about it over the years it still managed to exceed my expectations to become one of my new favourite horror films.
The film follows a group of online ghost hunters, Horror Times, as they plan to live stream an investigation into the abandoned Gonjiam mental asylum. The asylum is on their radar since featuring on a list of most haunted places in the world (something taken from real life), and some footage of schoolkids trying to get into a locked room within the hospital went viral. Hoping to make millions off the sponsorship deal if they're able to get a million viewers at the same time, the people at Horror Times recruit some volunteers to head into the hospital with them.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is a found footage horror movie, a sub genre that is often immediately written off as being bad. Whether it's the fact that there was a huge boom in the style in the 2000's following the success of films such as Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project thanks to the affordability of better personal camera equipment, or that many of the films in the genre emulated each other, the found footage genre seems to be one of the most hated. However, I think it can also be one of the more creative, especially when the filmmakers are trying to say something. Gonjiam does try to do things a little different, and is one of the first found footage films to move away from the guy with his home camcorder trying to capture ghosts approach and instead moves towards a critique of the internet ghost hunting boom.
Entertainment has changed with the creation and increasing popularity of YouTube, and it has become one of the chief sources for video entertainment in the modern age, with certain YouTubers having becomes incredibly rich and receiving celebrity status. It's a place where the ghost hunting shows have made great headway, with multiple channels engaging in both personal ghost hunts, and clip compilations of paranormal footage. This is what Gonjiam uses as it's basis for the film, as its main cast are either YouTubers, or people brought in to take part in a livestream. This isn't just used as the framing for the movie though, and it's also used as a justification for things continuing on where normally you'd run screaming. The people involved want to make money, they're convinced to keep going with the promise of fame and fortune, and they keep filming because they're literally strapped into a camera rig and can't drop their camera. It's a great justification that sidesteps a lot of the criticisms of the found footage genre well.
The first part of the film follows this group of characters as they get to know each other, travelling through the country to reach the Gonjiam asylum. Some of the characters come across as honest, whilst others already seem to be acting up for the cameras, putting on a false persona for their viewers. This is something that follows across into the actual investigation when it becomes apparent that the people at Horror Times are faking the paranormal encounters in order to drive up viewership and make more money. It feels very much like Jung Bum-shik, the writer and director, is taking shots at the kind of content creators who produce over-the-top entertainment for engagement and money, rather than trying to make a true and honest piece of art.
However, this is a horror film, so of course the fake paranormal encounters are just the prelude to the true horrors that await within the walls of Gonjiam. The film does this well, making you believe that the fake encounters are real for a while, before revealing to the audience that some of the characters are being tricked. When it becomes apparent, however, that not everything you're seeing is staged it makes the creepiness from earlier in the film hit a lot harder. The reveals in Gonjiam are incredibly well done, and there are multiple moments where you can feel your stomach suddenly drop as you realise you've seen something truly horrifying.
If there's other found footage films that I can compare Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum to it would be As Above, So Below and Grave Encounters. Both of these films begin fairly normally, and very quickly descend into a form of cosmic horror. Things don't make sense, reality warps, and you soon realise that even if the protagonists wanted to run away and get away from the horrors they literally can't. Gonjiam is like this, it subverts expectations and bends the rules in order to keep the horror going. Unlike Grave Encounters though, which is also set in a long abandoned mental hospital, Gonjiam doesn't try to explain itself. There's no final act reveal that the hospital staff were engaging in black magic or anything as silly as that. Instead, the horror just happens with no rhyme or reason and you're left to grapple with it all by yourself, further adding to the unease and wrongness of it all.
I'm trying to avoid talking about the actual plot or the types of scares in the film as this is very much a movie where the less you know about it before going into it the better. All I knew was that it was set in an asylum and was found footage, and because of that I had an absolute blast with the movie. Every twist and turn in the story, every jump scare, every long, tense scene that didn't follow the rules, and every horrific entity that we encountered just kept ratcheting up the tension. The film sits at a decent 91 minutes in length, which is about average for this kind of film, but by the time the end comes it feels like it's barely begun. The film has such a great pace to it, with a story that draws you in so much that by the time it comes to an end you'll be upset that there wasn't more to the film to keep you in longer.
However, that's where Second Sight has us covered quite nicely. Alongside the film the new set comes with a brand new audio commentary by Mary Beth McAndrews and Terry Mesnard, horror experts and hosts of the Scarred For Life podcast that's very engaging and almost relaxing to listen two as the two hosts engage in a comfortable banter. There's also a new video essay by horror journalist Zoë Rose Smith who goes into haunted house movies and their appeal, alongside several older featurettes that have been on previous releases. These older releases delve into the making of the movie a lot more, chatting with the cast and their experiences as actors, as well as going into the technical challenges the movie faced with some key members of the crew.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum might not be the most original horror film ever made, and whilst it's one of the first to explore the online streaming side of found footage much of the plot and scares are the kind of thing you'll have seen in other releases. However, the way that it's all put together and the execution make it one of the most entertaining, and frightening, horror films I've seen from the last ten years. The film did exceptionally well in South Korea, and it's not hard to see why. This is absolutely going to be a film that I'm going to watch several more times, and will be recommending to any horror fan.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum Blu-ray and Limited Edition Blu-ray are released on 24th June 2024 from Second Sight.
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