41/26
Charlotte keeps looking to the side when the group is outside the hospital
Narrative
The crew of a horror web series travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast. They soon encounter much more than they bargained for as they delve deeper into the nightmarish old building. The filmmakers were unable to get permission from the South Korean government to film in the hospital itself, so the scenes in the film set in Gonjiam were actually shot at the National Maritime High School in Busan, with the production crew adhering closely to the hospital’s floor plan to recreate the exact same exterior and hallways.
References Return to House on Haunted Hill (2007)
She obviously responds by smiling at whoever is there. I’m always a little hesitant to watch found footage films with the haunted house and asylum narrative. They usually all 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 while it resembles movies like “Grave Encounters” (2011) and the like, it builds up some impressive tension and gives a fresh twist to what you’d expect. 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 locked and so far impenetrable room (402).
Seriously, there were a few instances where things got scary, for real
The first 35 minutes are pretty introductory but make you feel comfortable with the crew. Once you get to the asylum, things naturally unfold at a brisk pace, with the last 20 minutes being pretty hair-raising. This isn’t a movie that does anything new or reinvents the “haunted asylum.” movie, but this South Korean movie lets you know, just because you might know what’s going to happen, that you shouldn’t be comfortable with how things are going yet.