No found footage horror will even capture the imaginations of a generation the way The Blair Witch Project had back in 1999. I get that. And yet, even today, it is hard to deny the found footage genre’s innate potential to scare. Undoubtedly, some of the scariest films to come out in the last twenty years are either found footage films ([REC], The Taking of Deborah Logan, V/H/S, V/H/S/2) or have incorporated found footage sequences into their plots (Sinister, Ringu).

Fortunately for horror fans, the found footage audience is not a particularly judgemental crowd. For a found footage film to really work, it only requires three ingredients. The first is good acting. Without this, its too easy to be taken out of the this-is-actually-happening illusion. The second, trickier ingredient is that you must be entertaining. No film can scare all the time, so what are you going to keep an audience’s attention between the scares. Then, finally, there is the scares. (And as Lake Mungo and Noroi: The Curse have proven; this does not always require a reliance on jump scares.) If you are going to make a found footage horror, then at some point you had better be damn scary. 

Which brings me to Jung Bum-Shik’s Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum, a film that holds the title as South Korea’s second highest grossing horror film, behind only the modern horror classic A Tale of Two Sisters. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is the story of a group of young ghost hunters who decide to take their show to a supposedly haunted asylum only to find that the ghosts there are, in fact, real. If this sounds exactly like the plot of the American indie horror Grave Encounters… or maybe even a couple other films… well yes … you are right. But then again, I never listed originality as one of the key ingredients for a good found footage film, did I.

What makes Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum more special than so many others is its awareness of the needs of modern-day found footage audiences. Gone is any feeble attempt to try to trick audiences into thinking the footage is somehow authentic or based on true events. And gone is the single camera point-of-view that makes some found footage films tedious to watch. In this film, the backstory of the seven-person crew is that they were selected, in part, because they have experience with web-media, and each has been given a camera to film with. They have also rigged up motion-cameras in the “hot-zones” of the asylum’s four floors and have use of a drone to help with overhead outdoor shots. Every thing seems very professional, which is entirely the point. Team leader Ha-Joon hopes to gain a million views on his channel Horror Times by broadcasting the event live.

Of course, it does not hurt the film that Gonjiam is an actual abandoned asylum in South Korea that has notoriously found its way on many lists about the creepiest locations on earth, a fact that the movie does a good job incorporating into its plot. (In fact, if you want to, go on Google now and look it up.) And though the film does retcon the asylum’s history to add a mystery surrounding a locked room 402, the attention to detail in Bum-Shik recreation of the asylum’s interior is so impressive its hard not to wonder if the film was shot on location. (Actually, it was shot in a school.)

But what really helps to elevate Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum from its found footage brethren is its characters and pacing. Bum-Shik is patient with his scares, using the first third of his film to help us buy into the idea that this seven-person crew is comprised of real people. We get to see them meet for the first time, bond over beers, and joke about ghosts on their road trip, before revealing that knack for improvisational professionalism that got them hired to do the live stream in the first place. But we also see how planned and scripted the event truly is, as we watch Ha-Joon direct everyone’s movements from his studio tent outside, re-playing portions of their footage in those moments the crew needs to set up in a new location. Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum does a very good job entertaining the audience by lifting curtain that exists behind a professional live stream to reveal just how much planning is often done ahead of time. It shows us that live streaming is more about the illusion of authenticity than authenticity itself.

The early portions of the film may not be the most terrifying, but they do successfully establish an eerie atmosphere that seamlessly transforms into full-blown terror in the final act. It turns out, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum relative tameness is just a ruse. When the scares finally come, they are relentless. Now I admit, the film does always offer the most original set of scares to grace the screen, but there is no denying that the rapid succession of horror is truly unnerving. Bum-Shik shows a genuine understanding of what scares people, particularly in those masterful sequences involving Charlotte. Poor girl. Ganjiam: Haunted Asylum may take its time before it starts swinging, but when it does it aims is towards the fences.

The simple lesson that filmmakers can take out of Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum is that found footage horror does not always need to reinvent the wheel to be successful. Ganjiam: Haunted Asylum is great because it properly mixed all the right ingredients that turn a found footage horror into a satisfying experience. This is the model popcorn movie the genre’s fans often crave.  Any director with an aspiration to make a found footage horror should take note.