In 2018, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, a low-budget horror film, beat the $175 million sci-fi adventure Ready Player One to the box office in South Korea in its first week of release and became the second-highest-grossing horror film in the country. This result makes me wonder what makes Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum so successful and scary.

First of all, the main story of the film is about seven men and women who want to increase their popularity and get income through live broadcasting. In order to increase the audience rating of the show, they decide to go to the mental hospital named Gonjiam to live broadcast terror at night. In terms of plot, this film closely follows the current characteristics of Internet media which can make some audiences resonate.

The film is shot in a mockumentary style, which mimics the format and filming style of a documentary but does not depict the actual events. The difference between this approach and traditional horror filmmaking is that traditional horror films often require the audience to know the story. In contrast, a mockumentary horror film eliminates the need to describe the full story and focuses on the present state of the protagonist and his manager and creates a straightforward horror effect. In fact, many other horror films before Gonjiam have used this pseudo-documentary approach, such as The Blair Witch Project and the once-popular Paranormal Activity.

But the success of Gonjiam lies not so much in the filming format, but in the new horror experience, it brings to the viewer from a live perspective. In Gonjiam, most of the footage looks exactly like what we normally see live, and this perspective allows the viewer to experience the film in a way that is in sync with the characters and to believe that everything is happening.

Furthermore, the main setting of the film, the Gonjiam Asylum, is a real-life site. And it is a local Korean paranormal attraction (Khoziashev, 2022), which also makes the plot feel more realistic to the audience.

Shaviro, in Post Cinematic Affect, refers to this kind of form as ‘vicarious allure’ which is often a participatory mode and is disinterested（2010）. The seductive objects, in this film, are characters who are essentially inaccessible to the viewer, but who, through interactions with the camera, make the viewer believe that what is happening in front of them is what exists in everyday life.

All in all, Gonjiam resembles the angle of a live Internet broadcast as well as the set-up of the scenes. This makes the content highly interactive and enhances the horror experience and the sense of immersion of the audience.

Edit By: Yuxia Shen(33738765)

References

Haunted asylum beats ‘ready player one’ in Korea (2018) Korea joongAng Daily. Korea joongAng Daily. Available at: https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=3046393 (Accessed: December 1, 2022).

Khoziashev, S. (2022) Gonjiam asylum: The lies, myths, and truths, KoreabyMe. Available at: https://koreabyme.com/gonjiam-asylum-the-lies-myths-and-truths/ (Accessed: December 1, 2022).

Shaviro, S. (2010) Post-cinematic affect. Ropley: Zero.