- Directed by Beom-sik Jeong
- Written by Beom-sik Jeong, Sang-min Park
- Stars Wi Ja-Joon, Yoo Je-Yoon, Seung-Wook Lee
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKEgeojjcGg
Spoiler-Free Judgement Zone
Oh, no, not another found footage style horror movie, you might say. Well, it is one of the genre, but it’s really well done. Tense and creepy. The effects and acting are top notch – the cast really sells that they are jumpy and terrified.
Synopsis
A group of teens get to the fourth floor and look for room 402. “We’re real men, sucker!” One says into the phone camera. They open the door, laughing maniacally. We cut to “Horror Times,” a YouTube channel that shows paranormal investigations. They plan to go to Gonjiam, one of the seven most haunted places in the world. It was closed in 1979 after a string of murders and the disappearance of the director. It was said to be built over a place where Japanese invaders killed a bunch of Korean freedom fighters. Then the director was accused of being a mass murderer before she vanished. There are now countless rumors of ghost appearances.
We meet the seven people that are planning to go to the asylum; four guys and three girls. Everyone who saw a ghost at the asylum heard a ping-pong ball first. They all hope for a million views, so they can make half a million dollars. I suspect YouTube doesn’t pay anywhere near that.
We hear about the three boys trying to get into room 402. They went insane right afterwards. The group arrives and sets up a big tent as a base camp. It looks like they packed for a week’s expedition, not just one night. They are very well equipped with cameras and equipment. A couple of the guys set up cameras inside the asylum before the rest go in.
They all go in when it’s time except for one guy in the tent to watch the video monitors, handle the live feed, and act as a director. One of the doors closes by itself, which gets everyone excited. They spread out in pairs, investigating various parts of the building. Finally, they come to room 402, which no one has ever been able to open. They decide to save that for later.
They set up a psychic ritual in the director’s room, which they have rigged with many strings and little bells as warning alarms. They do the ritual. The bells start ringing and the candle flickers. They don’t see anything, but now they all believe it’s real. We soon see that it was faked for the viewers— the director put a couple of the guys up to it.
Suddenly things start getting weird out in the tent where the director is. Inside, they find a doll in the lab that used to belong to a patient, and one of the girls gets completely hysterical when it’s not where she saw it earlier. Then they go into a room with little lockers that look like coffins, and that goes badly for them. Then, some graffiti that said “Let’s Live” changed to “Let’s Die!”
A pair of the girls get scared and leave the building. The director lies to his accomplices about the changing sign, but they don’t really believe him. Meanwhile, the girls outside aren’t really outside anymore; then they run into something nasty.
Meanwhile, the last pair is still upstairs still trying to cut their way into room 402. The director straps on a camera and heads inside after them, not to rescue them but to cut that door open. Inside, they find the cursed ping pong ball. The door opens…
The director runs up the steps and approaches room 402. He doesn’t see any of his friends, which ought to be strange, but he goes on anyway. He gets his wish: to meet the asylum director.
Commentary
These guys don’t travel light for a bunch of trespassers. They have tons of equipment, far more than they could realistically even carry in that van.
Whenever there are blinky cameras and unreliable spotlights, you can count on jump scares. There aren’t any jump scares early on, but it’s filmed like there should be, which increases tension, even in the early scenes.
It’s all dark and shadowy, but you can easily see what you need to see. It’s a very creepy location, and the acting is very good. I’d absolutely recommend watching this one alone in the dark. I liked this a lot more than I expected!