32/24
Synopsis
A horror web series crew travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast. They soon encounter a lot more than they expected as they move deeper into the nightmarish old building. The filmmakers couldn’t get permission from the South Korean government to film in the actual hospital, so the scenes in the film set in Gonjiam were actually filmed at the National Maritime High School in Busan, where the production team closely followed the hospital’s floor plan to create the exact same exterior and hallways. Charlotte keeps looking to the side. when the group is in front of the hospital. She obviously responds by smiling at anyone. References Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007). I’m usually critical of found footage horror, as it’s usually unnecessary and doesn’t add anything to the story. Usually, found footage films do better than “regular” films. This is not the case with Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. With new cutting edge technology and a reason why the actors know how to handle the camera, it serves this cinematic purpose perfectly. There are few shaky cams and other "effects" that you usually see in found footage, which in my opinion ruin the film. The story itself is pretty standard, 7 young "ghost hunters" go into an old insane asylum, mainly for views and profit, which makes it more realistic than other similar films. The pace of the film is pretty slow, and nothing happens in the first half, but it’s worth it! I was originally going to give it a 6, but considering that it’s a horror film, and one of the scariest films. This subgenre I’ve ever seen, I raised it to a 7. If you want a scary film without too much plot, this is the film for you.