User reviews

This is a found footage film. It's not much different than others out there but it did a great job of building tension once it got going. I think that it should have moved a bit faster at the beginning.

I was disappointed that there wasn't much of a story about the hauntings. It seemed like it only gave enough information to imply that it might have been haunted. I wanted more details.

I thought it had a couple of creepy moments and overall, I enjoyed it.

Normally I am critical of found-footage horror, as it usually is unnecessary and brings nothing more to the story. Usually found-footage movies would do better as a "regular" movie. This is not the case for Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum. With new cutting-edge technology, and a reason as to why the actors know how to work a camera, it serves this movies purpose excellent. There is little shaky-cam and other "effects" that you would usually see in found-footage, which in my opinion ruins the movie.

The story itself is pretty standard, 7 young "ghost hunters" enter an old insane asylum, mainly for views and profit, which makes it more realistic than other similar movies. The pacing of the movie is pretty slow, and nothing really happens for the first half, but it's worth it!

I originally wanted to give this a 6, but considering this is a horror movie, and one of the scariest of it's sub-genre I've ever seen, I bumped it up to a 7. If you want a scary movie without too much plot, this is the movie for you.

It is well-paced and just the proper length.

The setup is good.

The actors are competent.

And most importantly, the third act does not disappoint, drag or get all weird for the sake of being weird. There are some genuinely suspenseful and scary moments.

But yeah, rethink the high heel boots if ever invited on a live-streaming haunted horror adventure at a location highly rated by a cable news outlet.

If you're a fan of scary B movies, the scares are amazing on the second half. I really hate the blacking out/glitching effect the movie did. I enjoyed watching it when everything rolled out.

How much you get out of this Korean found footage horror will depend on your mindset for this particular sub-genre. There's really nothing new here - think along the lines of "Grave Encounters", but better executed with the use of upgraded technology to stream live any paranormal encounters. The premise is run-of-the-mill; a small crew from a horror web series "Horror Time" grab cameras to explore an abandoned and isolated asylum late one night for a live broadcast. However they get a lot more than what they initially bargained for.

No surprises in how the situation plays out, however the atmosphere is laid on thick. Pure dread, looming shadows and creaking sounds engulf a dank, colourless location that will simply swallow you up. It very much reminded me of the tone/ambiance found in Session 9, maybe even creepier. One thing though, no way would you get me in there after midnight.

After a slow beginning introducing the characters, chemistry dynamics and a little history of the asylum including other thrill-seekers that have disappeared after entering the building. It all works up quite nicely to the obligatory jump scares and equipment failure. What seemed simple at first showed the plot had a surprise or two up its sleeve in its paranormal loophole, which is all centred around the cursed room 402. There were a couple rather effective set-pieces, yet probably not enough incidents in what feels kind of drawn out. Still those moments we do get, and there are a good 3 or 4, are well-shot hair-raising thrills.

A terrifying found-footage horror from the South Korean film industry, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum travels a well-worn path, packs the expected genre tropes, and implements the same formula that other similar examples before it did. And yet, everything about it is surprisingly better & far more effective, possibly due to its genuinely tense build-up & excellent rapport between its committed cast.

It's definitely worth the watch if that's what you wanna know. The acting was great and funny! I felt like I actually cared for the characters. The premise is very interesting, but some scenes seem inspired by Grave Encounters. I was instantly hooked from the start but towards the end, things stopped making sense... I felt like they rushed it and didn't bother to explain anything... but it was a fun movie!

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.

If you like horror movie with first person pov i suggest you to watch this one. its worth your time and slowly building up your tension. and the place is real since i searched it up and read the story, its not a fiction, i mean the place.

What makes 'Gon-ji-am' worth checking out is probably the fact that a place such as this really exists. Plus, most actors have used their real names and portray themselves in the film (adding to its 'authenticity' factor). So, when some of them eventually die in the film (hell no, that ain't a spoiler!), you get a feeling that they could really be dead (à la 'Cannibal Holocaust' and later, 'The Blair Witch Project', and many more).

The 'live-stream' aspect does lend some real-time tension to the film. The cameras, thankfully, aren't too shaky (like in most POV horror flicks) and there are some added technological twists (like the drone!) which aren't fully explored. Yet, the writing and the horror itself is so derivative that you can clearly predict what's going to happen (if you've seen 'The Blair Witch Project', 'REC', 'Paranormal Activity' 'The Tunnel', or 'Grave Encounters' or similar films).

That indeed is the biggest bummer! 'Gonji-am' probably came out, maybe, a little too late. If you haven't explored the found-footage genre much, this could intrigue you to a fair extent. There are jump-scares but Director Jung Bum-shik struggles to sustain the horror throughout the film. The actors are not-bad choices. Some of them manage to convey the dread really well.

I watched this by myself on a cold, rainy night and honestly, it left me a little disappointed. Nonetheless, you can give it a watch if you like the genre and horror-films in general!

The movie started off pretty slow. Once it started ramping up though it definitely moved pretty quickly. I would say probably only the last half an hour was the really creepy part, but it was definitely worth the watch. It was a little hard to follow at certain times because the cameras keep flickering and turning off and you think that it's something wrong with your TV or Internet, but that's the way they have the movie set up. I appreciate it that there were English subtitles and those subtitles included telling us what the words on the doors meant as well so we knew which room they were going into.

You start to hate one of the characters about halfway through and you hope that they die through the rest of the movie. A good "found footage" movie.

My son and I have been looking for horror movies that will actually scare us and this one definitely creeped us out enough to where we had to watch TikTok for a little bit afterwards to take our mind off of it.

First of all, it's kinda boring. The characters spend a lot of time screaming at each other and it takes over an hour for things to really get rolling. Even then, it's hard to make out because it's so dark; and with the face cams, you spend most of the movie staring up people's nostrils. I give them a 5 for trying, and that's honestly being generous.

My review title already sum up the whole movie plot and to get the best experience watch alone cause the movie maybe not original but it well-made and spooky as hell

THIS is the best found footage movie I've seen.

It doesn't matter that the material is not new, or similar to another movie, it's ********* Terrifying!

Starts slow but defo worth the wait. I would highly recommend (dare) you watch it in the dark on your own !

In didn't cover my eyes because that's for girls, but I did squint on purpose though lol

I love (not all) found footage movies, I've watched so many, but this and a The Afflicted are my 2 favourites now, I'm going to get this one on Blu-ray too.

The acting was believable, the director knows his horror, and I'm delaying going to bed right now on purpose lol

Enjoy at your own peril!

The writer of Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun. That's certainly true with "Gon-ji-am". It borrows liberally from other films in the genre -- most notably "Blair Witch Project," "Rec," "Unfriended" and "The Eye" (the 2002 Taiwanese film) but it borrows well. Somehow the sum of the parts is greater than the whole -- two days after seeing "Gon-ji-am" it is already fading from memory -- but it is still a pleasant way for a supernatural horror fan to while away a couple hours.

Korean directors have produced some really exciting works, but lamentably this is not one of them. Right from the start, all the elements in the movie already looks too familiar: adventurous explorers, renowned haunted house, self-shot video clips, etc. I have got the feeling that nowadays directors of horror movies must be innovative enough in order to impress the desensatized audience, because really, for them there is already nothing left to exploit on the beaten track.

I have been a staunch advocate of Found Footage features since the day I came to know about their existence! It's either the added touch of pragmatism or the lifelike depiction of ghastly stuff, that very much intrigues my mind & my conscience. Thus, I'm always on the lookout for these first-person perspectives.

Here, the story takes us to Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, an age-old asylum in Gwangju-si, South Korea; that has witnessed a myriad of hauntings in recent times and moreover shares a dark past of its own. When two teenagers suddenly disappear, a group of seven people on behalf of a Horror reality show decides to go down there and investigate. Meanwhile, trying to capture plausible supernatural sightings on a live feed.

Even though blatant skepticism comes into play at the initial stages, little did they know; things were about to get real!

It's fraught with a sense of dread, nail-biting disquietude, and above all it made me gasping for breath on several occasions! A deftly crafted piece of horror that has benefitted from such a creepy location and the all-inclusive chilling atmosphere attached to it! Alongside a bunch of believable acts and likable leads; this one merits consideration.

Except for a handful of setbacks concerning its Screenplay and pacing; the broader outcome does convey a strong impression nonetheless! Had the Writing been a bit more construed and further elaborated, I would have certainly given higher remarks.

For a found footage horror film, 'Gonjiam: Haunted asylum' strikes me as perhaps a little more polished in its production design than similar features. With that consideration in mind it's easy to engage with the movie without special concern for indelicacies commonly associated with the genre. The isolation of the setting, the almost Brutalist-style architecture of the institution, and careful, meticulous set decoration quickly work to start weaving atmosphere. Factor in the deep shadow that dominates every moment past the exposition, and the film does a fantastic job of forging a chilling air just from our instinctual fears kicking into overdrive, as though we were really in the facility alongside the characters.

'Gonjiam' relies substantially on that pervasive ambience of profound disquiet, and a significant portion of the runtime passes with this alone very capably sustaining an exquisite sense of unease and dread. Furthermore - as viewers watching a genre film, we pointedly know to anticipate Something at an unknown time, and there's a second level of suspense added with that knowledge, waiting for the other shoe to drop. After aberrations do eventually manifest, there are sparing instances of what one could say are "conventional" horror scares, but in my opinion the painstaking construction of the picture so thoroughly primes us for heightened terror as to amplify those frights far beyond common expectations. More to the point, the visions to greet us mostly present with what I, personally, find most concretely unsettling in the genre - unnatural posture, movement, noise, vocalizations. These build off the consuming atmosphere to engineer intensely hair-raising scenes, and once the most powerful feelings of acute, particular distress pass, I cannot overstate how fulfilling the experience has been.

It's been a very long time since I've expected horror movies to provide real scares. Mostly I just hope for a creepy, cringe-worthy fun time, and if a filmmaker can manage to evoke sensations with a strong atmosphere, or offer some singularly spine-tingling sights, then these just make it all the better. I entered 'Gonjiam: Haunted asylum' with no foreknowledge or especial assumptions, and have been absolutely blown away by what I got. I can't remember the last time I watched a horror film that elicited such sharp, protracted, continuous, and lasting autonomic and emotional responses. I'm so impressed!

The effects are outstanding, the cast is great, and all aspects of the picture were clearly considered with utmost care. Gratifyingly, the movie completely enraptures us with the active experience of the web series crew without any true need for suggested lore and background to be expanded into a dominant narrative, as we so often see happen in similar tales. In the past I haven't held found footage films at large in very high regard, but I've recently watched a few very well made ones - and this easily bests them. Director Jung Bum-shik, co-writer Park Sang-min, and everyone else involved is to be applauded for making a feature in a niche genre, and a ghost story no less, that delivers such astounding visceral thrills. It's captivating, wholly absorbing, and is without question one of the best horror films I've ever watched: as far as I'm concerned, 'Gonjiam: Haunted asylum' is a must-see.

Two teenagers are at the derelict Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in front of the notorious room 402 trying to open the door and streaming from their cellphones. Soon they disappear, before opening the door. The owner of the YouTube channel "Horror Times", Ha-joon (Wi Ha-joon), decides to transmit live from Gonjiam expecting to reach one million accesses and sponsors to pay half a million dollars in advertisements. The Gonjian Psychiatric Hospital has a notorious past, since its Director (Park Ji-ah) killed all the patients and then committed suicide. Ha-joon joins a crew of six teenagers: three boys, Sung-hoon (Park Sung-hoon), Seung-wook (Seung-Wook Lee) and Je-Yoon (Jay Yoo); and three girls, Ah-yeon (Ah-yeon Oh) and the rookies Charlotte (Ye-Won Mun) and Ji-Hyun (Park Ji-Hyun), to spend the night at Gonjiam and broadcast live. Ha-joon stays at a base tent controlling the broadcast with a delay to edit his choice before streaming to the viewers and the group split and goes to the four floors of the hospital. What the girls do not know is that Ha-joon, Sung-hoon and Seung-wook have planted fake supernatural effects to haunt the girls and consequently the viewers that would be scared with the effects. When the effects are activated, Charlotte and Ji-Hyun are startled and frightened, but are convinced to stay with the group. But out of the blue, supernatural activities happen at Gonjiam and Ha-joon tries to understand what is happening and keep the streaming going on.

"Gon-ji-am", a.k.a. "Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum" (2018), is a predictable but tense "found footage" style movie. This low-budget film has an awful and messy cinematography made by handy camera and is scary, but in a confused way. The conclusion is kind of senseless. "Gon-ji-am" is indicated for fans of horror that like this type of cheap way of filming, since the unoriginal plot is funny. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Gonjiam: Manicômio Assombrado" ("Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum")

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!

I love a good found footage movie (especially horror/mystery) and this one almost touches on that greatness. The ingredients are there but although quite spooky and the interactions with the evil entities are unique at times, it still felt like another jump-scare heavy horror flick and ran a bit stale. Personally, I didn't enjoy the glitchy effects and skipping of sequences either. On a good note, the visual imagery is respectable, and the film shoot execution is pretty darn good.

Gonjiam starts off with the usual horror live streaming premise you would see in every (recent) mockumentary/found footage horror film. While it sounds cheesy, the first scenes actually interesting because all tech savvy things and the interaction between the actors are quite promising. However, it seems they can't find more ideas to fill the duration ... except by the usual horror that has been used for almost repeatedly in every horror film.

Friend turns possessed, poltergeist, first person jumpscare, all things that has been invented in horror video game, horror mockumentary, and so on, performed in this film. Not by any means to say that those scenes are bad, but to my taste who has seen quite similar films, Gonjiam turns to be not as innovative as its shown in the beginning of the film, or the reviews.

What makes me more disappointed is how this film seems losing its grip to reality in the climax scene(s). Too many plotholes are trying to be snitched, too many off air scenes performed. Even I am not sure if their footage even can be "found". It's much like The Office US, when the mockumentary only become the shooting style, leaves the connection to the reality.

Good thing the jump scares quite good. I don't know if I'm taking this too seriously, but in case you are a casual viewer of horror films, I suggest not to take the plot too seriously or you'll gone annoyed most of the time.