50/41
At the beginning of the film, they first meet at a restaurant
Narrative
The crew of a horror web series travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast. They soon encounter a lot more than they bargained for when they move deeper into the nightmarish old building. The filmmakers couldn’t get permission from the South Korean government to film in a real hospital, so the scenes in Gonjam actually take place at the Busan National Maritime High School, where the production team strictly followed the hospital’s floor plan to create the exact same exterior and hallways. However, on the way to the hospital, they talk about a previous trip.
Literature Return to Haunted Hill House (2007)
In the shot where everyone jumps into the water, it’s said that the same faces just met. *EDIT – reference to a previous trip & then *everyone met* jumped into the water. They talked about doing it & then they did it. No nonsense..
Honestly, this one is no different
I’m always a little hesitant to watch found footage with a haunted house/asylum narrative. They all tend to follow the same formula with pretty much the same horrors. But of course I watched it because there was no doubt I wouldn’t. And while it’s similar to movies like Grave Encounters (2011) and the like, it builds impressive suspense and feels fresh, which is what you’d expect.
Seriously, there were a few times when things got downright scary
The setup is simple, with a production crew going to a supposedly haunted asylum for their reality show to record ghosts live and break into a locked and previously inaccessible room (402). The first 35 minutes are pretty introductory, but they do a great job of getting you in with the crew. Once they arrive at the asylum, things move at a natural, steady pace, and the last 20 minutes or so are hair-raising. This isn’t a movie that does anything new or reinvents Haunted Asylum; movie, but this South Korean film means it lets you know just because you might know what’s going to happen, and you shouldn’t feel comfortable with how things turn out.