Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
Theatrical release poster
Hangul	곤지암
Hanja	昆池岩
Revised Romanization	Gonjiam
Directed by	Jung Bum-shik
Written by	Jung Bum-shik Park Sang-min
Produced by	Kim Won-kuk
Starring	Wi Ha-joon Park Ji-hyun Oh Ah-yeon Moon Ye-won Park Sung-hoon Yoo Je-yoon Lee Seung-wook Park Ji-a
Cinematography	Yoon Byung-ho
Production companies	Hive Mediacorp
Distributed by	Showbox
Release date	March 28, 2018 (2018-03-28)
Running time	91 minutes
Country	South Korea
Language	Korean
Budget	US$2.2 million
Box office	US$21 million

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum (Korean: 곤지암; Hanja: 昆池岩; RR: Gonjiam) is a 2018 South Korean found footage supernatural horror film directed by Jung Bum-shik. Based on a real-life psychiatric hospital of the same name, it stars Wi Ha-joon, Park Ji-hyun, Oh Ah-yeon, Moon Ye-won, Park Sung-hoon, Yoo Je-yoon and Lee Seung-wook in the lead roles. The narrative centers around a horror web series crew that travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast to garner views and publicity.

The film opened theatrically in South Korea on 28 March 2018, in the United States on 13 April 2018, and in the Philippines on 2 May 2018. A commercial success, it also became the third most-watched horror film in South Korea after A Tale of Two Sisters and Phone. Later, it was screened at the 20th Udine Far East Film Festival.

Plot

Two boys are recording their exploration of the abandoned Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, where rumor states that the hospital's ping pong-loving director killed all of the patients and went missing. The two head to Room 402, the intensive care unit, which no one has been able to open before. They try to open the door but suddenly hear a ping-pong ball. Their livestream broadcast abruptly ends, but not before catching a glimpse of a ghostly face. After seeing news of the teenagers' disappearance, Ha-Joon, owner of the YouTube channel "Horror Times", decides to explore the building himself.

Ha-Joon enlists a group of six people (three girls: Ah-Yeon, Charlotte, and Ji-Hyun; and three boys: Sung-Hoon, Seung-Wook, and Je-Yoon) for their own livestream. Ha-Joon will stay at their base camp off the road to control the broadcast while the rest of the group will go inside. It is then revealed to the audience — but not the livestream viewers or the women in the group — that Ha-Joon, Sung-Hoon and Seung-Wook have scripted out this ghost hunting scenario just like all previous Horror Times videos, including planting scares for the viewers and women to react to. Outside, the group tie underwear to a tree as a marker. Inside, Charlotte pours holy water into a small dish to record its reactions. In the director's office, they find a group photo of the patients and staff. Ji-Hyun and Charlotte find a doll, which they later discover has moved on its own. They see that it is the same doll held by one of the patients in the group photo. Outside, the camp's propane burners turn on by themselves and Ha-Joon's equipment suffers glitches and power outages, temporarily separating him from the group.

Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon try to open the door to Room 402, while the other four explore the "Group Treatment Room," where there they find many strange coffins with holes in them. When Ji-Hyun puts her hand in a hole, her hand is pulled and wounded. Disturbed, Ji-Hyun and Charlotte decide to abandon the project and leave the asylum. Ha-Joon reviews footage of all six participants standing together and becomes disturbed as well, unsure who filmed it if all six were in the shot. Seung-Wook and Sung-Hoon, unsettled from seeing actual paranormal activity, continue onward with their scripted investigation after receiving a promise from Ha-Joon that they will receive more pay if they do. They see a wheelchair moving by itself in the basement. Everything in the room begins to float, and both boys are knocked out by flying objects. Seung-Wook awakes and is dragged away by an invisible force.

Outside, Charlotte and Ji-Hyun encounter the underwear marker more than once, revealing that they are somehow going in circles. Ji-Hyun goes into a trance and her eyes open completely black. Frightened, Charlotte flees toward the camp but finds herself back at the asylum in Room 402. Ji-Hyun is in a corner with the doll. Charlotte looks down to see the doll from earlier on her foot. A naked man appears, and Charlotte is attacked and pulled into the darkness.

Sung-Hoon wakes and runs to Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon, who are still trying to open the door to Room 402. Sung-Hoon informs them (and now the live audience) that previous things were scripted but now that real paranormal forces have attacked them, they need to rescue Seung-Wook. Suddenly, a ping-pong ball bounces toward them and Charlotte's screaming is heard from inside Room 402. The infra-red cameras start to flash, detecting a presence. Room 402 opens, and the screen goes dark.

Sung-Hoon, Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon find themselves in a dark room with no exit, standing in knee-deep water. Numerous ghosts appear and they are possessed one after the other and eventually swallowed by the darkness. Ha-Joon, seeing his view count nearly reaching one million views, goes to investigate and gets strangled to death, seemingly by the ghost of the director herself. The final survivor, Seung-Wook, awakens and finds himself strapped to a wheelchair and is pulled into Room 402.

The epilogue shows that despite everyone's continued broadcast, the live stream had cut off after Sung-Hoon admitted the stream was supposed to be scripted. The viewers, none the wiser, mock the failed stream. Additionally, the view count had only peaked at 503 viewers instead of the near-million that Ha-Joon saw on his monitor. In the final scene, the dish of holy water starts to boil.

Cast

• Wi Ha-joon as Ha-Joon
• Park Ji-hyun as Ji-Hyun
• Oh Ah-yeon as Ah-Yeon
• Moon Ye-won as Charlotte
• Park Sung-hoon as Sung-Hoon
• Yoo Je-yoon as Je-Yoon
• Lee Seung-wook as Seung-Wook
• Park Ji-a as Hospital Director / Director’s Ghost

Production

The film takes place in the former Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, purportedly one of Korea's most haunted locations. In 2012, CNN Travel selected it as one of "7 freakiest places on the planet."

Most of the scenes in the film were filmed in the National Maritime High School in Busan, with the production team adhering closely to the floor plan of the actual hospital to recreate exactly the same exterior and hallways.

Controversy

Before the release of the film, the owner of the asylum filed a lawsuit against the film being shown in theaters, claiming that the film will have negative effects on the sale of the building. However, a Seoul court in late March 2018 ruled in favor of the film being shown. On 28 May 2018 Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital was demolished.

Release

The film released in South Korea on 28 March 2018. In the United States, the film was released by Well Go USA on 18 April 2018, and in the Philippines, the film was released by Multivision Pictures in partnership with Viva International Pictures on 2 May 2018.

In April 2018, just days after the film was released, actor Lee Seung-wook who made his debut with the film announced his departure from the entertainment industry. The actor, who was reportedly absent from promotional activities for the film, cited personal reasons for the decision.

Reception

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum came in first at the domestic box office on March 28, 2018, alongside the openings of Hollywood film Ready Player One and local film Seven Years of Night, collecting US$1.2 million from 198,369 admissions. Remaining at the top spot for the next four days, the film earned US$10.2 million from 1.37 million admissions in its opening weekend and accounted for 40% of the total weekend box office receipts, the biggest March opening ever achieved by a Korean film.

After three weekends, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum has attracted near to 2.6 million viewers and accumulated US$21 million in box office takings, the second biggest gross for a Korean horror film, behind 2003's A Tale of Two Sisters.

Aedan Juvet of Bleeding Cool claimed the film "mastered" found footage horror, naming it amongst some of the best of its genre. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 91% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 6.4/10.

Awards and nominations

Awards	Category	Recipient	Result	Ref.
55th Grand Bell Awards	Best New Actor	Wi Ha-joon	Nominated
	Best Editing	Kim Hyung-joo, Yang Dong-yeop	Won
	Best Planning	Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum	Nominated
39th Blue Dragon Film Awards	Best New Actor	Wi Ha-joon	Nominated
	Best New Actress	Park Ji-hyun	Nominated
	Best Editing	Kim Hyung-joo, Yang Dong-yeop	Won
	Technical Award (Sound)	Park Yong-gi, Park Joo-gang	Nominated
5th Korean Film Producers Association Awards	Best Sound		Won

See also

• Grave Encounters, a 2011 Canadian film with a similar setup
• Guimoon: The Lightless Door, a 2021 horror film with a similar setup

External links

• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum at IMDb
• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum at HanCinema
• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum at Naver Movies (in Korean)