Gon-ji-am (2018) Reviews

• Amazing Horror Film!

  revolutionatic2018-04-22

  I walked into this one expecting another generically entertaining horror film. Boy, was I wrong! If you are looking to be spooked out of your minds, this one definitely takes the cake! The movie is about a bunch of young adults who sneak into an abandoned haunted asylum to try and open a deeply haunted room known as Room 402. They do this in order to get a lot of views for their live-stream of proving paranormal activity in the asylum and make a lot of money in the process through ad revenue (typical millennial ambitions). The story wasn't bad, but it was predictable. However, story is not the selling point of horror films in my opinion. The creep factor was stellar, the direction made near perfect use of the recording/live-stream gimmick, and the sense of dread and mystery kept the audience hooked when things started getting interesting. Furthermore, the jump scares were done in moderation and I was not fed up with it by the end of the movie. That is definitely a plus! The acting was great. The actors do a good job of portraying silly young adults looking for cheap thrills and excitement. However, certain scenes were rather pointless or made no sense. The cliched joyful and fun-filled segment making 1/4 of the movie (a strange staple of a lot of Asian horror movies) was a bit too long, and served no purpose to the overall plot. There was also some form of teleportation in the movie which felt like lazy writing, and one scene near the end involving the background of a computer also felt forced and cheap. Furthermore, the direction tried to keep the realism of live-stream gimmick of the movie, so there were parts where the scenes hanged and lagged (to add to the immersion and realism). I found this annoying but this seems to be a matter of taste as I am sure others would appreciate this cinematic touch. Be that as it may, do not let these minor flaws put you off this amazing horror film. I highly recommend lovers of horror to give this a try! As an avid horror film hobbyist, I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of this movie. Definitely check this out!

• "Haunted Derivative" would've been a better title.

  S_Soma2018-09-04

  Is GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM a staggeringly atrocious movie especially worthy of castigation and derision? Well, not really. It is what it is, it is probably exactly the movie it intended to be, and if you consider the type of movie it is to be a kind of genre, it's as good an example of its genre as any other. But one does have to face the fact that there is nothing about this movie that is original, groundbreaking, interesting, unique, especially creative or gifted, artful in it's depictions of something horrifying, or any other particularly positive adjective. As others have pointed out, objectively, it's virtually the same thing as GRAVE ENCOUNTERS and about a dozen other similar movies with similar settings and themes. If GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM was the first example of this type of movie instead of the thirtieth, it would be far easier to think more favorably about it as a movie. I quite understand that it's virtually impossible for a movie to be truly original at this point in the history of moviemaking. But a movie should at least try to add a little SOMETHING to the field and not be a relentless rehash from stem to stern. I imagine the collection of extremely negative reviews of this movie stem from the fact that every scene and/or stylistic choice within it has been seen before by many of the reviewers. There's nothing interesting or different here; it goes across the palate like a leftover of a dish that was much better when fresh and where any of the negative aspects of the original are only emphasized in the reheating. To find something "fresh" to say about the movie it does have the distinction of being in Korean, and requiring English speakers to read their horror in subtitles. Which is sorta different... I guess... Some of the ingredients that you can't help but recognize: All of the money scenes in GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM are so dark that if you don't watch the movie in a completely darkened room you can't see virtually anything. The movie is set in the nearly ubiquitous context of a hospital/asylum that had an evil director and mistreated/tortured patients that died under mysterious circumstances. Large tracts of the movie are taken up with extreme close-ups of "terrorized" faces which fill up two thirds of the screen and you can't see anything else that's going on. There's lots of screaming until well past the point where you get a headache. The characters are at the asylum/hospital to record a program for entertainment purposes and their desire to produce the program overrides their common sense. The facility is laced with cameras and lights. The characters are fitted with cameras to record their experiences. Nothing of interest happens until the last few minutes of the movie where suddenly the proverbial fertilizer strikes the ventilator. Elements of reality get bent out of shape as the supernatural beings vent their spleens on the characters. And so on ad nauseam. Given the fact that it is exactly what it tries to be, just in Korean, GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM dutifully and even slavishly replicates every positive and negative aspect of this kind of movie from the early happy, carefree scenes of the attractive young adults blissfully "partying" unaware of the horror that lies in front of them and blah blah blah to the camera glitches and unexplained power outages in everything from flashlights to computers giving you the high sign that the ghosties are about to happen in the scene. If you're the type of person who is prone to watching found footage films featuring a supernatural/paranormal bent, the "action" described in the above two paragraphs will be so familiar to you that you can virtually imagine and predict every scene in the picture. It's very difficult to give this movie a positive review given that inescapable truth. If you experienced anything new and fresh or even somewhat different in GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM, then you've been living under a rock until recently and have really lucked out. For the rest of the planet, not so much.

• Surprisingly Good!

  testificatetestificate2018-07-27

  Before I start my review I wanted to point out most of the reviews on this page for this film keep stating "it's bad" "it sucks" without giving valid points backing up their review which I find is poor taste. If you're going to review a movie, review it thoroughly instead of treating it like some homework you don't want to do. With that being said, it's refreshing to see a Korean movie like this that uses the recorded footage styling while using modern technology such as Go Pro's, drones, and other devices. Now onto the review. The story line of the movie was pretty solid and relate-able to what people do nowadays on social media and etc for money. It begins with a group of people who debunk horror mysteries, unsolved cases, and supernatural things recruiting few people to travel along with their crew. Now their primary goal is to live stream the entire course of events and get sponsored by advertisement companies to be compensated with a fat check after it's done. Of course they deal with the consequences of dealing with more than what they bargained for when the supernatural events start taking place. Will leave it at that for the brief summary. Before I watched this film, I haven't heard any of these actors but their acting was superb. Their reactions to each given situation seemed very genuine and convincing for the audience. How the movie was shot was very entertaining to watch as well. A good example of how they shot the movie is sometimes they would switch back from POV to first person showing the character's face like how they do it in Korean variety shows. I haven't seen a horror film yet where they incorporate this type of method yet. The visuals don't make you dizzy at all or sick and I commend the videographer on this method. What I really enjoyed about this film was how they ended it. Like most Korean horror movies they tend to over explain the plot towards the ending or end the movie on a sad note where you sympathize with the ghost or some similar situation. In this film it's like a roller coaster. You enjoy the ride and that's it. You remember the thrills and suspense but mostly it was a entertaining ride. What the film lacked at some points were the actual horror aspects in a typical similar film. It creates the atmosphere but the deliveries were a bit bland in my opinion. It leaves you getting a taste and wanting more but that craving isn't satisfied. To finish this section off with a positive the film is very mysterious about it's origins of the facility (even though they discuss the urban legends surrounding it) and that's how some horror movies should be left. Leaving you in the dark without an explanation of all the crazy things that occur/occured. Overall the film is very enjoyable and I would say you would especially like it if you've enjoyed the V/H/S horror film series. Would definitely recommend watching it with friends on a movie night. Would not recommened it if you dislike the whole "found footage/POV/camera feed" styling of a film. Hope this review helped to shed some light on some of the bad reviews here.

• Worth it

  johnnyutah312018-09-18

  I'm always a bit hesitant to watch found footage films with the haunted house/asylum narrative. They all usually follow the exact same formula with almost the exact same scares. Honestly this one is no different. But of course I watched it because there was no doubt I wasn't going to. And even though it's similar to films like "Grave Encounters (2011) and such, it builds an impressive amount of tension and makes what you'll expect seem fresh. The setup is basic, a production crew goes to a supposed haunted asylum for their reality show to capture ghosts live and break into a room (402) that's locked and so far impenetrable. The first 35 mins are pretty introductory but does a good job of making you feel good with the crew. Once they arrive at the asylum, things unfold naturally at a steady pace with the last 20 mins or so being quite hair raising. Seriously, there were a few instances where things got spooky, for real. This isn't a movie that does anything new or reinvents the "Haunted Asylum" film, but what this South Korean film does do is let you know just because you might know what's going to happen, you shouldn't be comfortable still in the manner that things play out. This one might be in my top 10 for the year.

• I'll never watch it again

  chicagoff2018-09-27

  When I saw that the movie had 6.1, I was like, "Oh Ok, another pretty decent horror movie". But when you are done with the intro of the movie, it's a very scary one. I watched Grave Encounter which was very nice and inspired this movie I guess, but something about Korean ghosts there is really putting it to the next level. And don't be bother with the subtitles, they speak a lot at the beginning and then it's fine !