In this blog post, I’ll examine the origins and definition of the mockumentary genre and, through the films ‘Abandoned House’ and ‘Actresses’, explore the characteristics and limitations of the Korean-style mockumentary, as well as its potential for future development.

The Beginnings of the Korean Mockumentary

The mockumentary genre, which began with ‘The Blair Witch Project’ 10 years ago, gained widespread acceptance due to various factors, including its ability to achieve maximum impact on a low budget. Subsequently, films that intermittently claimed to be mockumentaries—such as ‘Cloverfield’, ‘L.E.C.’, and ‘Paranormal Activity’—successfully delivered a sense of realistic horror to audiences by actively utilizing shaky, first-person handheld camerawork.
“The Blair Witch Project” achieved box office success beyond all expectations thanks to a marketing campaign that maintained strict secrecy at the time of its release, completely fooling audiences. With the release of ‘The Blair Witch Project’ in South Korea, more and more Korean audiences began to enjoy classic horror—not through scenes featuring ghosts or eerie special effects, but through a sense of being in a “haunted house” that kept them on edge. Building on this trend, cable TV networks began airing more classic, high-quality mockumentary horror series, which were met with a great response.
Although there is the drawback that viewers must watch these shows knowing they are fake documentaries from the start, thanks to this surge in cable TV programming, mockumentaries and “real horror” films are no longer unfamiliar to Korean horror fans.

What Is a Mockumentary?

A mockumentary refers to a fictional film created using the realist techniques characteristic of documentaries. It is a term formed by combining “documentary”—which captures reality as it is—with “fake,” a word that carries the contrasting meaning of “false.” It is also known as a “mimic documentary” or “fake docu,” and with the addition of “mock” (meaning “to mock”), it is sometimes called a “mock documentary” or “mockumentary.”
Generally, audiences trust the events depicted in documentaries because they perceive them as “true.” Accordingly, a fake documentary is a film created primarily by utilizing traditional documentary filming techniques and narrative structures to enhance realism and audience immersion. They may exclude artificial lighting in favor of natural light, employ handheld techniques using small cameras, or incorporate interview segments to convey or reenact situations in a realistic manner.

“The Abandoned House”: An Experimental Film That Falls Short of Being a True Horror Movie

Since there have been few instances of mockumentary-style horror films receiving official theatrical releases in Korea, the trailer for “The Abandoned House” generated considerable anticipation among audiences. At first glance, ‘The Abandoned House’ gave the impression of borrowing from the most recent mockumentary horror film, ‘Paranormal Activity’, but it piqued curiosity because it was based on an actual abandoned house in Korea and attracted attention by holding an unprecedented memorial service during production.
Set up around the premise of a broadcast team—comprising a producer, director, and sound engineer—joining three members of a haunted house exploration club to film an infamous abandoned house, the news of ‘The Abandoned House’’s production was eagerly awaited by horror fans craving a Korean-style ‘Paranormal Activity’.
However, “Haunted House” merely copied the filming style of existing mockumentary works like the aforementioned “Paranormal Activity,” failing to deliver the freshness promised by taglines such as “Korea’s first attempt” and “Korean-style mockumentary real horror.” Although ‘The Abandoned House’ was filmed from a first-person camera perspective, its crude editing—which deviated from the original intent of conveying the reality of exploring an abandoned house with a single camera—dampened interest in this aspect. While it was a good idea to borrow the narration and interview formats familiar from television variety shows, the intensity of the fear actually felt by the audience did not surpass that of the typical fake horror shows commonly broadcast on cable TV.
The special effects, which seemed forced into the film, gave the impression of being overused as the movie progressed, and it’s impossible to shake the feeling that most scenes were simply carbon copies of scenes from much-discussed foreign mockumentary horror films.

An Experiment with a New Format: “Actresses”

The mockumentary format of “Actresses” differs in nature from other mockumentary horror films like “Paranormal Activity” or “The Blair Witch Project.” The actresses portrayed in the film all appear under their real names and present the images we commonly recognize and expect. Until the story intensifies in the latter half, I had to devote half my attention to watching the film while wondering just how much of their behavior was genuine and where the acting began.
However, this is a success. Their behind-the-scenes behavior on set is shown, and considering how people flock to entertainment news and online gossip, this is a particularly intriguing aspect. When you see online news articles reporting what a certain actress ate for lunch and countless people clicking on them, it’s clear that the subject matter of ‘Actresses’ is a solid choice.
However, the appeal of ‘Actresses’ stems entirely from its form. This film, which prioritizes characters over narrative and individual scenes over plot, faithfully carries forward the characteristics of a mockumentary. Ultimately, the emotional destination is our coming to understand these women. The reason personal documentaries like “Human Theater” resonate so deeply is that they allow us to peer into people’s lives and ultimately feel empathy and understanding.
“Actresses” is a work that selects subjects we find interesting and sets a good precedent in terms of form.

The Current State and Future Potential of the Korean-Style Mockumentary

As I researched and wrote about the Korean-style mockumentary, I felt that, genre-wise, it still lags behind Hollywood’s mockumentaries. The incorporation of other genres into mockumentaries—as seen in Hollywood films such as ‘District’, ‘Zelig’, ‘Chronicle’, and ‘Fargo’—is an aspect that remains underdeveloped in the Korean-style mockumentary.
However, films like ‘Actresses’, which use real people to stage fictional scenarios, as well as other genres seen in television programming (‘We Got Married’, ‘MBC Docu: The Spinster’, etc.), are steadily evolving and changing.
Since the mockumentary genre is still evolving, I hope to see a greater variety of unique mockumentary formats that fuse with new genres, rather than those limited solely to horror thrillers.