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.
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.