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Name of the movie you are reviewing: Gonjiam
The main content of the film tells the adventure journey in this deserted mental hospital of 7 people, including the 3-person team of a horror discovery show on YouTube and the 4-person team volunteering to participate in the expedition.
Review:
The first impression of the film is the way of shooting fake documents (found footage) familiar from other horror movies such as V / H / S, The Blair Witch Project, Paranomal Activities ... For many people, they can shoot. This causes dizziness when watching but for me, I really like this type of movie. It makes things look more real and feels like I'm immersed in the happenings of the movie, and I think that with the testing of this shot, Gonjiam is new to Korean films. This is evidenced by box office revenue of 9.6 million USD and 1,298,567 views.
There's one more important thing, that this movie, it's so scary.
One of the things that caught Gonjiam's attention was the film being shot at the Gonjiam Mental Hospital in Gwangju. This is one of the most notorious places to suppress protesters under dictator Park Chung Hee with a series of anecdotes about the brutal torture of people participating in the democracy movement. Nearly 20 years ago, Gonjiam was mysteriously closed. This place has been recognized by CNN as one of the 7 most terrifying places on earth and also the only Korean place on this list.
Made in a pseudo-documentary style, the whole process of infiltrating Gonjiam Hospital of the group of young people in the film is shown through the camera angles that they equip themselves and bring. This storytelling method puts viewers in a fair position with the characters. The audience only sees what the characters see, hears what they hear, and shares their curiosity, fear and horror. No background music was used in the movie.
The only background sound is the bouncing of the ominous ping pong ball, which is an easter egg referring to the ball that the director of this hospital really liked in the past. The pseudo-documentary style also helps director Jung Bum Sik stretch the sense of time in the film, creating an atmosphere of tension and suspense throughout from beginning to end. While time is fermenting and expanding, awful things can come at any time. Fear comes from the feeling of waiting rather than the colorful scare.
For the same reason, it can be said that Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is a very fair-play film. The director did not abuse jump-scare scenes like many horror movies now do; Instead, he deliberately kept the movie circuit in a steady rhythm, focusing the audience's attention on the screen. The video camera that the young people brought to Gonjiam has a camera that shoots close to the participants, detailing the emotions on their faces, sometimes too close, creating a sense of distortion. creepy to the looker. Because of its pseudo-documentary style, the film also limits the wide angle of the camera and focuses only on the perspective of the characters. It's rare for the audience to have a chance to see the whole scene of what is happening in the building, thus feeling even more confused and scared.
If this style of horror movie is still quite new in Korea, the audience of Hollywood horror movies is not too strange with films like The Blair Witch Project, Book of Shadows, Paranormal Activity .. The most positive difference that Gonjiam brings is the realistic reflection of the film. If The Blair Witch Project gained attention because it reflected the reality of the current wave of television, Gonjiam was equally awake when bringing the livestream element into the content. The group of young people in the adventure movie invades Gonjiam not only because of curiosity but also because of the amount of view of the online audience along with the desire to famous. The camera equipment of the young group in the film is also very diverse and modern, making the audience of technology enthusiasts can be very interested.
However, if the goal is a perfect movie, Gonjiam is still quite far from that position. The film has an old motif and does not create many surprises for the audience. Especially connoisseurs of Hollywood horror movies. A group of young people try to infiltrate a famous haunted place and find the room where they are rumored to be empty. The psychic freak elements in the film are quite stereotypical. For example, the graffiti on the wall was originally "let’s live" but then suddenly changed to "let’s die" (whichever we died). Scary details like a ghost doll should have created more sense of liveliness than that. The characters are also well-mannered and no one makes a striking impression to the audience after the movie ends. The audience can even guess who will die one by one.
Although the storytelling and plot are not breakthrough enough, but with the context of a real place, there are many remarkable traces in the history of the country of Korea, Gonjiam's stimulation of curiosity of the audience of the country is also understandable. Foreign audiences can also come to Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum to learn about one of the world's most terrifying psychiatric institutions.
I believe there will be a few people who are a bit obsessed with the last minutes of the film because the circuit at that time seems to run very fast, just like how the characters sell half-dead. The image of the film is black, gray and blue tones but not too dark, people like me still see it as usual. Jumpscare songs are enough to cover your eyes. Especially the director also has frames that bring a sense of breath to the viewers. Like I said above, this kind of fake documentary movie really feels real. Characters portrayed a clear personality, psychological character is also one of the factors that make you panic when watching movies. Because filming in this format, there will be close-ups of actors with psychological factors, their fears are well shown. You can feel their fears and the images that haunt you from this perspective.
However, one small minus point is that I feel that due to focusing too much on exploiting fear, the story of the hospital is abandoned quite a lot. For example, the purpose of the group is to find out why the hospital was haunted, so why is it haunted, possessed by someone and the identity of some ghosts is still unknown. I don't really understand what the abbess told at the beginning of the movie has nothing to do and where the ghost is wearing a school uniform. If you add a little explanation on this issue, the film is more and more meaningful.
Would you recommend this to other users? A worth-trying horror film.
Rating(1-5):
The main content of the film tells the adventure journey in this deserted mental hospital of 7 people, including the 3-person team of a horror discovery show on YouTube and the 4-person team volunteering to participate in the expedition.
Review:
The first impression of the film is the way of shooting fake documents (found footage) familiar from other horror movies such as V / H / S, The Blair Witch Project, Paranomal Activities ... For many people, they can shoot. This causes dizziness when watching but for me, I really like this type of movie. It makes things look more real and feels like I'm immersed in the happenings of the movie, and I think that with the testing of this shot, Gonjiam is new to Korean films. This is evidenced by box office revenue of 9.6 million USD and 1,298,567 views.
There's one more important thing, that this movie, it's so scary.
One of the things that caught Gonjiam's attention was the film being shot at the Gonjiam Mental Hospital in Gwangju. This is one of the most notorious places to suppress protesters under dictator Park Chung Hee with a series of anecdotes about the brutal torture of people participating in the democracy movement. Nearly 20 years ago, Gonjiam was mysteriously closed. This place has been recognized by CNN as one of the 7 most terrifying places on earth and also the only Korean place on this list.
Made in a pseudo-documentary style, the whole process of infiltrating Gonjiam Hospital of the group of young people in the film is shown through the camera angles that they equip themselves and bring. This storytelling method puts viewers in a fair position with the characters. The audience only sees what the characters see, hears what they hear, and shares their curiosity, fear and horror. No background music was used in the movie.
The only background sound is the bouncing of the ominous ping pong ball, which is an easter egg referring to the ball that the director of this hospital really liked in the past. The pseudo-documentary style also helps director Jung Bum Sik stretch the sense of time in the film, creating an atmosphere of tension and suspense throughout from beginning to end. While time is fermenting and expanding, awful things can come at any time. Fear comes from the feeling of waiting rather than the colorful scare.
For the same reason, it can be said that Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is a very fair-play film. The director did not abuse jump-scare scenes like many horror movies now do; Instead, he deliberately kept the movie circuit in a steady rhythm, focusing the audience's attention on the screen. The video camera that the young people brought to Gonjiam has a camera that shoots close to the participants, detailing the emotions on their faces, sometimes too close, creating a sense of distortion. creepy to the looker. Because of its pseudo-documentary style, the film also limits the wide angle of the camera and focuses only on the perspective of the characters. It's rare for the audience to have a chance to see the whole scene of what is happening in the building, thus feeling even more confused and scared.
If this style of horror movie is still quite new in Korea, the audience of Hollywood horror movies is not too strange with films like The Blair Witch Project, Book of Shadows, Paranormal Activity .. The most positive difference that Gonjiam brings is the realistic reflection of the film. If The Blair Witch Project gained attention because it reflected the reality of the current wave of television, Gonjiam was equally awake when bringing the livestream element into the content. The group of young people in the adventure movie invades Gonjiam not only because of curiosity but also because of the amount of view of the online audience along with the desire to famous. The camera equipment of the young group in the film is also very diverse and modern, making the audience of technology enthusiasts can be very interested.
However, if the goal is a perfect movie, Gonjiam is still quite far from that position. The film has an old motif and does not create many surprises for the audience. Especially connoisseurs of Hollywood horror movies. A group of young people try to infiltrate a famous haunted place and find the room where they are rumored to be empty. The psychic freak elements in the film are quite stereotypical. For example, the graffiti on the wall was originally "let’s live" but then suddenly changed to "let’s die" (whichever we died). Scary details like a ghost doll should have created more sense of liveliness than that. The characters are also well-mannered and no one makes a striking impression to the audience after the movie ends. The audience can even guess who will die one by one.
Although the storytelling and plot are not breakthrough enough, but with the context of a real place, there are many remarkable traces in the history of the country of Korea, Gonjiam's stimulation of curiosity of the audience of the country is also understandable. Foreign audiences can also come to Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum to learn about one of the world's most terrifying psychiatric institutions.
I believe there will be a few people who are a bit obsessed with the last minutes of the film because the circuit at that time seems to run very fast, just like how the characters sell half-dead. The image of the film is black, gray and blue tones but not too dark, people like me still see it as usual. Jumpscare songs are enough to cover your eyes. Especially the director also has frames that bring a sense of breath to the viewers. Like I said above, this kind of fake documentary movie really feels real. Characters portrayed a clear personality, psychological character is also one of the factors that make you panic when watching movies. Because filming in this format, there will be close-ups of actors with psychological factors, their fears are well shown. You can feel their fears and the images that haunt you from this perspective.
However, one small minus point is that I feel that due to focusing too much on exploiting fear, the story of the hospital is abandoned quite a lot. For example, the purpose of the group is to find out why the hospital was haunted, so why is it haunted, possessed by someone and the identity of some ghosts is still unknown. I don't really understand what the abbess told at the beginning of the movie has nothing to do and where the ghost is wearing a school uniform. If you add a little explanation on this issue, the film is more and more meaningful.
Would you recommend this to other users? A worth-trying horror film.
Rating(1-5):
