Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum Limited Edition Blu-ray (2018) Review
Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum Limited Edition Blu-ray (2018) Review
An online horror show is desperate to build up its followers and what better way to do it than to send its team to film a live broadcast from a notorious haunted asylum? The presenters and crew pack up their kit and descend on the intimidating location… But it is not long before things take a terrifying turn and spiral into a living nightmare that is about to be captured on camera.
This new collector’s edition is presented in a rigid slipcase with brand new artwork by Luke Headland and comes complete with a 70-page book with new essays and a fantastic haul of special features including: a new audio commentary and a slew of archive featurettes and more.
I have said it before and I will say it again, as far as horror sub-genres go, found footage flicks generally leave me unfulfilled and bored to the point of wanting to scream at the screen. That Second Sight have not only managed to release one of the absolute best that the sub-genre has to offer recently – THE BORDERLANDS – but also to happen to release another of the rare gems in the same sub-genre GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM is both very welcome and dumbfounding – why dumfounding? Who knew that there was TWO found footage flicks worth affording a Limited-Edition release to? Second Sight did and I am incredibly pleased that they have.
Unlike THE BORDERLANDS, GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM was one I gave a wide berth to prior, simply because it looked like just another run-of-the-mill found-footage flick. It both is, and it is not. Plotwise, Director Jung Bum-shik’s super creepy film treads a well-worn path – youngsters with cameras exploring a reportedly haunted location – but in terms of delivery and structuring, this soars high above the rest and is, for my money, one of the best horrors released to date this century.
It is obvious that cinemagoers on the film’s home turf of Korea thought so too as this film holds the second largest box-office gross for any Korean horror film behind A TALE OF TWO SISTERS (2003). GONJIAM: HAUNTED ASYLUM bucks the trend by making the very idea of this being found footage believable. Where each camera is placed is substantiated and believable, and by having a creditable young cast really selling that they are increasingly terrified adds to the overall effect. The jump scares work, the tension is unrelenting and rather than build up to a disappointing finale (as other found footage flicks tend to do) this keeps delivering right up to and including its final frame.
Special Features
New audio commentary by Mary Beth McAndrews and Terry Mesnard
Fear the Unknown: Zoë Rose Smith on Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
Archive featuerettes:
The Beginning of the Rumours
The New Faces
The Sanctum of Horror
The Truth of the Ghostlore
The Live Recording
The Press Conference
Trailers
Limited Edition Contents
Rigid slipcase with new artwork by Luke Headland
70-page book with new essays by Sarah Appleton James Marsh, Meagan Navarro, and Amber T
6 collectors’ art cards
