Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum

Two teenage boys are recording their exploration of the abandoned Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital, where rumor states that the director of the hospital killed all of the patients and went missing. The two head to Room 402, the intensive care unit, which no one has opened before. They try to open the door but suddenly hear a ping pong ball. Their broadcast abruptly ends. After seeing news of the teenagers' disappearance, Ha-Joon, the owner of YouTube channel "Horror Times", decides to explore the building.

Ha-Joon gets together a group of six people: three girls; Ah-Yeon, Charlotte, and Ji-Hyun, and three boys; Sung-Hoon, Seung-Wook, and Je-Yoon, for a live broadcast of their exploration. They set up equipment around the hospital. Ha-Joon stays at their base camp off the road to control the broadcast. The rest of the group tie some underwear to a tree as a marker. Inside, Charlotte pours holy water in a small petri dish to record its reactions. In the director's office, they find a group photo with all the patients and staff, and Ji-Hyun and Charlotte find a doll in the lab, which they later discover has moved seemingly on its own. They see that it is the same doll held by one of the patients in the group photo.

Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon try to open the door to Room 402, while the other four explore the "Group Treatment Room," seeing many strange coffins. When Ji-Hyun puts her hand in a hole in the coffin, her hand is pulled and wounded with scratches. The group flees in terror. Disturbed, Ji-Hyun and Charlotte decide to leave. Ha-Joon reviews footage of all six participants standing together and becomes unsure who filmed it if all six were in the shot. Charlotte and Ji-Hyun walk back to the base camp but get caught in an illusion as they encounter the underwear marker more than once. Ji-Hyun goes into a trance and her eyes open with black sclera. Frightened, Charlotte flees toward the base camp, but upon entering it she finds herself back at the asylum in Room 402. Ji-Hyun, still possessed, is in a corner with the doll. A naked man appears and Charlotte is attacked and pulled into the darkness.

Seung-Wook and Sung-Hoon see a wheelchair moving by itself in the basement. Everything in the room begins to float, and both boys are knocked out by flying objects. Regaining consciousness, Sung-Hoon runs to Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon, who are still trying to open the door to 402. Suddenly, a ping-pong ball bounces towards them and Charlotte's screaming is heard from inside 402. The infra-red cameras start to flash, detecting a presence. 402 opens and the screen goes dark.

Sung-Hoon, Je-Yoon and Ah-Yeon find themselves trapped in a dark room with no exit, standing in knee-deep water. Numerous ghosts appear; the three panic until they are possessed one after the other and swallowed by the darkness. Ha-Joon goes to investigate and gets strangled to death. Regaining consciousness, Seung-Wook finds himself strapped to a wheelchair and is pulled into room 402.

In the epilogue, the dish of holy water starts to boil. The final scene shows that the broadcast failed after the team had set it up. The comments mention "whether the team knows if the feed isn't live."

• Park Ji-hyun as Ji-Hyun
• Moon Ye-won as Charlotte
• Lee Seung-wook as Seung-Wook
• Park Sung-hoon as Sung-Hoon
• Wi Ha-joon as Ha-Joon
• Oh Ah-yeon as Ah-Yeon
• Yoo Je-yoon as Je-Yoon
• Park Ji-a as Hospital Director / Director’s Ghost

The film takes place in the former Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province, purportedly one of Korea's most haunted locations. In 2012, CNN Travel selected it as one of "7 freakiest places on the planet."[8][9]

Most of the scenes in the film were filmed in the National Maritime High School in Busan, with the production team adhering closely to the floor plan of the actual hospital to recreate exactly the same exterior and hallways.[10]

Prior to the release of the film, the owner of the asylum filed a lawsuit against the film being shown in theaters, claiming that the film will have negative effects on the sale of the building. However, a Seoul court in late March 2018 ruled in favor of the film being shown.[11]

The film released in South Korea on 28 March 2018.

In April 2018, just days after the film was released, actor Lee Seung-wook who made his debut with the film announced his departure from the entertainment industry. The actor, who was reportedly absent from promotional activities for the film, cited personal reasons for the decision.[12]

Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum came in first at the domestic box office on March 28, 2018, alongside the openings of Hollywood film Ready Player One and local film Seven Years of Night, collecting US$1.2 million from 198,369 admissions.[13] Remaining at the top spot for the next four days, the film earned US$10.2 million from 1.37 million admissions in its opening weekend and accounted for 40% of the total weekend box office receipts,[14] the biggest March opening ever achieved by a Korean film.[15]

After three weekends, Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum has attracted near to 2.6 million viewers and accumulated US$20.3 million in box office takings, the second biggest gross for a Korean horror film, behind 2003's A Tale of Two Sisters.[16][17]

The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 91% of critics have given the film a positive review based on 11 reviews, with an average rating of 6.44/10.[18]

• Grave Encounters, a 2011 Canadian film with a similar setup

• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum on IMDb
• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum at HanCinema
• Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum at Naver Movies (in Korean)