I’m not committing to doing this a bunch but I do want to get back to having some horror movie reviews here for October. Maybe a couple a week, I dunno.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
Coming out in 2018, this movie was a gigantic hit in South Korea. Based partially on a CNN story about the “Seven Freakiest Places on the Planet”, (Shoutout to Gyeonggi-Do too. That’s where I lived in Korea.) six YouTubers with a ghost hunting channel brave the asylum in an attempt to bring out the evil spirits of the past. Will they survive the night or will the asylum add more to it’s grisly body count?
I mean, of course they die. But with Gonjiam, the how they die becomes a lot more interesting than will they. Before I get into that, just a few issues with the movie. Found footage is not everyone’s thing. This one isn’t the worst example of the subgenre, but it’s hard not to see someone across a room staring at a wall and be like “Oh ok, Blair Witch”. Found footage also, I think, relies a lot more on fake out scares. This movie is no exception. It starts slow and most of what you see initially is fake out scares and the characters trying to scare each other before the asylum starts doing it’s thing. So if you bounce off of found footage to begin with, this one won’t be for you. If you can roll with at least the broad conceits of the subgenre, you’ll at least get to enjoy it for it’s very atmospheric setting and creepy as hell ghosts. If you’ve seen Grave Encounters for example, it’s very similar to that but a bit better on the actual scares. There’s probably 5 other examples as well. You’re gonna feel like you’ve seen this movie before.
There’s a few inconsistencies in the world logic. The spirits can apparently control YouTube view counts and there doesn’t seem to really be a really set in stone reason why the spirits are out for vengeance. Which is ok. It’s a haunted asylum movie, there doesn’t need to be a ton of backstory there and it’s somewhat based on a real place but don’t expect anything unique. There’s a bit about the doctor doing experiments and the patients being part of it but it doesn’t really tie it specifically into the kills or ghosts. The ghosts just feel scary as hell but not tied to anything specific.
Where Gonjiam shines is in the memorable kills and spirits. One in particular makes an unforgettable sound that is downright horrifying. There’s cool setpieces involving technology and cameras and bells attached to strings that does more with the actual visuals of found footage than most other movies would. You’ve got drone footage and VR cameras and angles and things like that that do a bit more than the standard viewfinder/camera setup other horror movies do.
Overall, it’s a tense movie but it’s hard to escape the feeling it’s cribbing a lot from other horror movies. It’s like a best of clip show of found footage tropes that doesn’t totally come together for me. It’s a good watch but more of like a PG-13 version of found footage to get very creeped out to but doesn’t shatter any expectations.
I’m going with a 7 shirikodama outta 10 for this. It’s better than most found horror but doesn’t really beak out and do anything crazy with it.
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is streaming on Shudder, Peacock, Tubi, Plex, Roku, Freevee and AMC+.
Next time: Gonna stick with the “Let’s Kill Influencers!” trend and I’ll be reviewing Deadstream.