As Above, So Below

Plot synopsis:
In the opening scene, there is a bus just crossing over the Iranian border. A woman, Scarlet Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) is speaking into her camera, saying she has come to Iran to search for a piece of history about to be lost in a hidden catacomb that is about to be demolished by the government. She tells the camera that she understands that she is putting herself in great danger and potential execution by the Iranian authorities by trespassing where she doesn't belong but slyly notes "They'll have to catch me first."Scarlet goes to the home of Reza (Hamid Djavadan) a man who is willing to help her. His home actually has access to the catacomb Scarlet wants to enter. Reza tells her they have to be quick as the government cannot see them and the demolition is going to happen very soon.Scarlet and Reza go down but notice soldiers are down there as well. They hide and wait until they pass by. Reza wants to leave in fear of his family but Scarlet begs for a few minutes. Leaving their hiding spot, they find the inscription Scarlet was looking forward. She begins to read it, amazed by what she finds. She then takes a chisel to it to Rezas surprise. Scarlet counters they are going to blow it up away. She knocks it away to find a bull statue, The Rose Key. It is covered in markings. Scarlet begins to read them as sirens wail. The blast is imminent. Reza tells her they need to leave NOW but Scarlet refuses saying this was what her father spent his entire life searching for. Reza runs and Scarlet says she will be right behind him. She quickly captures the rest of the statue on film and runs, as the blasting commences. She dodges debris all around her and nearly gets lost. Thankfully, she sees the entrance where she first went in and Reza drags her out.Scarlet tells him she got the markings on film and now has the next step to finish her fathers work. Reza cautions her against looking for the Philosopher Stone. Her father looked for it, and His quest was a path to madness.Cue Title Sequence.Later, Scarlet is being interviewed by her cameraman Benjy (Edwin Hodge). She explains her mission to locate the Philosopher Stone, a famed item of supposed myth that could turn base metals into gold and grant who possessed it eternal life. Benjy asks about her father, and how his work possibly lead to his suicide. Scarlet is reluctant to talk about him and deflects from giving deep answers.Scarlet and Benjy are in Paris, France. They go to the home of Nicolas Flamel, a famed alchemist who was purported to have the stone and used for immortality. They got to his crypt, and Scarlet explains that grave robbers open the caskets of Flamel and his wife hoping to find the stone, but both were empty of everything, including bodies, just adding to their myth. Scarlet says that the location of the stone was said to be hidden in code on the grave stone of Flamel but she is unable to translate the language but she knows someone who can.Scarlet breaks into a church to Benjy's shock. Scarlet says she is looking for someone she knows, someone who breaks into places and fixes things. At the top of the church clock tower, they find George (Ben Feldman). George is less than happy to see her, telling Benjy the last time that he and Scarlet were together he got locked up in a prison in Turkey. Scarlet tells him she found The Rose Key, and needs him to translate for her. George realizes she went to Iran, alone, and is incredulous she put herself in that much danger. George finishes fixing the clock and they go outside to hear them ring for the first time in 284 years. George looks at Scarlet. "I'll help you translate but that's it", he says.When night falls, they go back to Flamel's tomb and look at the grave marker. They try to translate several markings but get nowhere. Scarlet deduces they have to look at the back of the stone. They turn it over and find nothing. However, she thinks it is hidden via chemical reactions, so she mixes up some and lights it, revealing a message on it. They now have their next clue.Benjy, Scarlet, and George look at a map trying to find a place to access where they need to go. They figure out that in the old days, people believe that hell was 741 feet down from Earth so they need to be halfway between Earth and Hell, underneath Flamel's tomb to find the stone. Scarlet realizes the catacombs are the only place low enough but Benjy notes that it is not far enough down. However, George remembers that in three spots around Paris, land cave-ins caused 100 feet of ground to collapse inward. One of those points is near Flamel's tomb. Scarlet realizes there must be a hidden catacomb in there.Benjy and Scarlet go on a sanctioned catacomb tour. Scarlet points out to Benjy exactly where they would have to enter but it is too closed off for access normally. A teenage boy nearby tells her to find Papillion (François Civil) to be their guide. The Tour guide sees Benjy and Scarlet are trailing behind and urges them back to the group. When Scarlet looks back, the boy is gone.Benjy, George and Scarlet go to a nightclub where Papillion is at. Benjy notices a strange girl that locks eyes with him intently. Scarlet tells Papillion about the hidden catacomb and though is unconvinced initially, is finally swayed when promised half of the treasure in the hidden catacomb. He tells them he will lead them.The next day, the group gets ready their gear. Among the group is Papillion's friend Souxie (Marion Lambert) and Zed (Ali Marhyar). Benjy asks about Papillion's scars on his hand. Zed says they don't talk about that. As they prepare, George reminds Scarlet that he is not going with them. Still, Scarlet convinces him to at least follow them to the entrance.When they get there, Benjy turns on cameras on each of their lights, so they can record everything that happens. George sees the small hole they are going through and balks at what they are doing. As they enter one by one, George is still vehemently against going. Suddenly, a police officer who had been following the group tackles Papillion and a scuffle begins. The group along with George flees into the tunnel in a panic. Papillion soon follows, and pops a smoke grenade so the cop will not follow them. Now free, they begin to go to work. Scarlet apologizes to George for him being there, but George doesn't want to hear it. He told her many times he didn't want to be here and yet he is.The group begins to go down the catacombs. They stop at a split path. Papillion notices that the left path which they would have to swim to is a cool room but not the way they are going to. They take the right path and continue on. As they walk, they hear some kind of disturbing chanting. Looking through some openings in nearby rocks they see a group of women in some sort of ritual. Papillion notes they are plenty of crazy people that come down here. Benjy looks in and a woman gazes at him intently. He recognizes her from the club and is freaked out.As they come to another crossroads, Papillion tells they have to take a path where they will have to crawl over a path of bones. Benjy says he will not do it, freaked out. Scarlet points out another path and says it will save the group hours. Papillion says absolutely not, as that is the bad path. Scarlett continues to argue but Papillion tells her he knows the catacombs better than she ever will. Furthermore, he, Zed, and Souxie had a friend named Mole who took that path out of eventual curiosity and they never saw him again. George talks to Scarlet and tells her that Papillion knows what he is doing and she can be a little more patient if it means keeping everyone safe.The group moves through the path. However, Benjy gets stuck and begins to suffer claustrophobia. Scarlet works several minutes to calm him down, and he finally crawls through. However, his actions help cause a tunnel collapse and he barely makes it through alive.When the six of them look around, it appears they are in the same place they just came from but there is no other way to keep going but the "bad" path Papillion refused to go through. The rest of the group overrules him, noting they have no other choice.As they walk through, they see a graffiti symbol much like one Papillion tagged earlier. Scarlet confronts him over this, but he denies ever being in this part of the catacombs. Suddenly, they hear a ringing phone. George notes that they used to be some phone cables down in the catacombs but they were all taken out. As they continue to hear it, George sees a sign that confirms they are in the area where the ground collapse and a 100 people dropped to their deaths. Papillion confirms this and that when they went in to fix the problem, 50 more people disappeared.As they continue to walk, they find an old piano, randomly sitting in a corner. Everyone thinks it is trippy. George says he used to have one that he and his brother Danny would play but the A4 key was broken. He begins to play a song but hits the A4 key to find it broken. George freaks out, asking Scarlet what is happening.Scarlet continues to hear the phone ring and goes searching for it. She finds a rotary phone sitting on a table. She answers it and hears a disembodied voice on the other end. She asks who is there but gets no response. She slams the phone down in fright. The group then looks further down the path only to be confronted with Mole, Papillion's long thought dead friend. Mole asks if they are looking for a way out, and the group says yes. Mole tells them the only way out is down. He directs them to a well and they begin to set up to rappel down. As George is going down, Benjy preps to go down next. However, his rope breaks and he falls until he smashes into George. In the process, he hurts his hands badly, so Scarlett bandages them up.When all six are down, they walk down a narrow corridor with an opening in the middle where water flows. Suddenly, the noise around them distorts, making it hard for them to hear, only to be replaced with loud, banging noises right after. In the confusion, one of their cameras catches the image of small child.At the end of the path, there appears to be another dead end. However, George and Scarlet find some carvings in the stone and realize it is like an Egyptian tomb and they have press the right stone to get entrance. Using the inscriptions they have, they correctly guess the right stone and door opens.The group enters and finds a well preserved corpse in Templar armor. Scarlet sees inscriptions on the wall that prove that her search is not a wild goose chase; the stone is real. On a hunch, she makes the group turns off their lights. Seeing a light coming from the floor, she discovers and underwater chasm that she crosses over. In it, she finds a treasure room and a wall with markings. The rest of the group come over and of course overjoyed despite the hardships that they are now rich.Scarlet looks at the wall and relates a myth about the birth of the sun and his envy of his parents love. She finds the Philosopher stone and chips it out of the wall. She finds it funny that priceless artifact is right next to such to find treasure. Her face goes white. Its a trap! she screams too late. Papillion has just broken off the door of the treasure room, which causes a cave in to occur.The group is all shook up but alive. They have to drag out Souxie from the rubble, and she got a messed up arm in the process. Scarlet uses shavings from the Philosopher Stone and heals her to the shock of the group. Realizing that Mole had apparently been killed in the cave in, they move on, trying to find a new way out.Scarlet and George find a new opening and begin to crawl through. George finds an inscription and Scarlet translates it as Abandon all hope, ye who enter here which is supposedly what is inscribed at the gates of hell. Papillion is really freaked out by this point but once again, they have no choice but go through the path they have.When they come out on the other side, they realize it looks like the room they just exited but everything is upside down and/or opposite. Papillion then sees the way they came in has disappeared completely. He asks Scarlet if they are dead in Hell. Scarlett says no.Souxie sees Mole and is startled by him. She tries to go up to him to see if he is okay but he flips out, grabs her by the throat, and bashes her skull in on the ground to the horror of the group. As they go to help Souxie, Mole disappears. Papillion begs Scarlet to use the stone to heal Souxie but it doesn't work because she is already dead. Papillion is heartbroken and the group has to keep going. As they begin to walk, Scarlet sees a noose hanging only to look again and see that it is gone. The group realizes that everything they are experiencing now is a mirror image of what they have already done, and all they are doing is just going deeper down into the earth.The group finds another well and rappel down. As Benjy gets ready to go down, he hears a baby cry. He turns around and yells if anyone is there. Looking again, the same woman that he had been seeing over and over screams and charges him. Startled, he falls down the hole without his harness and hits the ground, dead. Scarlet is absolutely horrified now that her expedition has now caused two deaths. George pulls her along, saying they need to keep moving.They have crossed another path of bones. As George is going, he sees a reflection of Danny, his brother drowning. He screams, and tries to get to his brother through the bones. Scarlet has to calm him down, reminding him it isn't real, and why would Danny be here in the catacombs now. Crossing over the path, they see a light in the distance. Getting closer, they realize it is a fire. Turning the corner they see it is a car on fire, with a young man inside who turns and looks at him.Papillion looks at the car in shock and screams: "NO! IT WASN'T MY FAULT!" (the boy is implied to be his brother or a close friend). Suddenly, an invisible force pulls Papillion towards the car. Scarlet and George try to hold him back but it is no use. Papillion is pulled into the flaming wreck, only for the flaming car to crumple up into a ball and disappear, leaving Papillion buried alive with his legs sticking out of the ground. Scarlet and George try to get him out only to realize it is too late for him. He's already dead.Now the group only has Scarlet, George, and Zed. As they continue down the catacombs, they see a robed figure. Knowing it is nothing good, they hide behind a corner. Knowing they might be dead soon, George talks briefly to Scarlet. Whatever happens, the week in Turkey was the best week of my life, he tells her. Mine too, she replies.The three of them look at the robed figure as he sits in a chair. He gets up after a minute and looks at them. The three run.They take a breather on a wall that has stone figures built into the walls. The stone figures come to life and attack them, one biting George in the neck. Scarlet and Zed drag him away, destroying some of the stone figures in the process.Scarlet tries to use the stone to heal George but it is not working. She realizes that now that reality is opposite, she never had the real stone. She has to go back to the wall where she found it, put it back and get the real stone. She tells Zed to watch George while she backtracks to the wall. Zed is afraid but Scarlet tells him if she doesn't go, George will die.Scarlet backtracks through the catacombs. At the spot where water flowed through the floor, it has been replaced with blood and hands reach out, trying to grab her. Scarlet escapes their grasp. She comes across a hooded figure hanging from a rope. She believes it is a hallucination of her father, but when she takes the hood off, she finds herself, who screams at her. She runs off and finds the wall where she found the stone. She puts it back in place but isn't sure where the real stone is. Looking at the wall she finds a large, gold orb at the center. She wipes some dust off it and sees her reflection. It is not explicitly stated, but this reveals to her that her earlier words- "as I believe the world to be, so it is"- is literal in this mirrored world, that she has the power of the Philosopher's Stone.On her way back to George, she sees a hallucination of her dead father, hanging from a noose. She gets up close and tells her father she's sorry she didn't take his call the night he killed himself. She didn't know he was that sick. His image disappears and she runs back to where George and Zed are, killing a few stone figures along the way.Zed asks if she got the stone and Scarlet says yes. She then puts her hands on Georges neck and kisses him. When she pulls her hands away, his wounds are healed and he comes back to life. Seeing the stone figures chasing them, they continue deeper into the catacombs.Scarlet finds yet another well down, but they know they will not have time to get down in a safe manner before the creatures get them. Scarlet says they will have to jump. Zed and George balk at doing that, noting they could die from a fall like that. However, Scarlet points out everything they have experienced and deduce if that they are actually in a circle of hell, they are being tormented for their guilt about past incidents. Scarlet is feeling guilty about her father's suicide, Zed had a child that he refused to acknowledge, and George's brother Danny drowned when he couldn't get back in time to save him. Scarlet says if they take a leap of faith and rectify their guilt, they have a chance. If they don't, they're dead anyway. George doesn't want to but Scarlet says she won't leave without him. The three hold hands and jump down the hole.They land, bruised but alive. Looking around, Zed doesn't see any exits and freaks out that everything was for nothing. However, Scarlet thinks about the phrase that has defined much of their journey; "As Above, So Below" and figures out there is an exit on the floor. Scarlet and George discover a manhole and after figuring out how to get it open, climb through and the three finds themselves back on the streets of Paris. They quickly cover the manhole back up, sealing the entrance. Zed exhales in relief and shock while Scarlet and George silently embrace, all three traumatized by the ordeal.The final scene is Scarlet's earlier interview with Benjy. She says some people think she is going after the Philosopher Stone for fame and fortune but it could not be further from the truth. Benjy asks if that is what she is really after, the truth. Scarlet confirms that is what she is truly after. "I want the truth", she says.The End.

Tags: dark, murder, paranormal, violence, flashback, tragedy, romantic

Review:
Seriously, that alone makes the movie worth a watch if you're a horror fan.
It's not anything spectacular, none of the film is honestly, but I was satisfied at the end of this movie and that's more than I can say about a lot of the found-footage movies I've seen recently.A pleasant surprise in horror is good acting, and this movie thrives on it.
As usual, with the films I like, I think it deserves better.This movie is different than others in this genre.
The acting is good and the movie builds and builds to a satisfying ending.I've re-watched it over three times.
He wrote Quarantine (2008), as well – another solid semi- recent horror.As Above/So Below is the best horror movie I've seen in a long time.First of all, it's shot on-location in Paris, which is a delight for any fan of that city.
It's tough to get through a whole scary movie without poor acting or cheesy moments.Apparently I'm in the minority because AA/SB is getting 13% amongst top critics and 57% amongst the users on Rotten Tomatoes.But I would encourage an open mind, because it's a cut above the rest.If you're looking for a decent flick this weekend, especially if you dig horror, you can do a lot worse than As Above/So Below..
Yes it is a horror film and no i was not terrified crying in the corner of the theater, but to say this movie didn't scare you it just seems like you think you're this super macho man who isn't scared of anything because you beat slender-man at 2 am in your parents basement.
Let alone i thought the actors did a great job, and it was very believable and it the hand-held camera work made you feel like one of the characters experiencing the whole thing.
Add to that some flimsy romantic love story, and you got a mediocre film at best.However, I do not want to give the impression that this movie was all bad.
But after Blair Witch Project, Rec, and Paranormal Activity, it is difficult to insert a new angle into the whole hand-cam-genre.So if you just want a decent scary movie for 90 minutes while keeping your expectations limited, Catacombes would be a decent choice..
Precocious young female British archaeologist equipped with martial arts skills & mandatory posh voice (but this time without dual firing pistols) is off following her father's footsteps on an adventure to find an ancient mysterious artifact with fabled mystical powers.It leads her into raiding a tomb (the French catacombs in this case, hmm why is this starting to remind me of something?) where mysterious things start happening involving angels & darkness.
The movie continually sets up little sub plots that it is blatantly not going to do anything with, randomly introduces things that make no sense in order to lead to the next set piece & everything is done with such gleeful arbitrariness that I couldn't help but be charmed & highly amused by it.Ultimately if you're looking for a dark unsettling movie about the nature of death, regret & evil or a psychological shaky cam movie with monsters you won't find either here (I'd recommend revisiting The Others or Rec instead).
I watch a new movie every night most of them being horror and no matter how much i have liked or disliked them i have never written a review, Until now.
When they find the stone, Scarlett removes it and soon they discover that they are trapped in hell with visions of their sins and she concludes that she must return the stone to the place where it belongs."As Above, So Below" is another irritating low-budget found footage horror movie.
Welsh born Perdita Weeks plays Scarlett, an archaeologist come alchemist come all round clever clogs who is obsessed with completing her dead-father's quest to find the famous 'Philosopher's Stone' (you see the Potter angle), supposedly buried with its 'inventor' Nicholas Flamel beneath the streets of Paris.She persuades ex-squeeze and ancient clock-mender (I'm not making this up) George (Ben Feldman) to join her on her underground quest , filmed by documentary maker Benji (Edwin Hodge) and roping in a bunch of Parisian adventurers who know the catacombs well.
Making me feel like i'm stuck down there with them and all of their fears being exploited left me as a paranoid wreck through the rest of the film.The movie isn't that scary, but more intense than anything.The ending was well thought out and not cliché.
Overall this movie is well worth watching for anyone looking for the thrills and chills associated with the history of the Paris Catacombs, provided they suspend the insatiable appetite to ask "why?".
This starts off very strong and the fact that they actually filmed in the catacombs beneath Paris gave this "found footage" more of a reality based feel.
The use of Paris catacombs as a movie location was an excellent move, adding value and interest to the film but, despite the gloomy atmosphere, it failed to create tension.
yet still manages to be largely forgettable.I actually like some of these low budget horror movies, and can appreciate that the cheap camera work is now a way of covering up the filmmakers lack of funds.
But i cant help but feel that "As above, so below" just tries way to hard to be something more than it is.For starters all of the actors/actresses in the movie are ridiculously good looking (Espechally the lead actress.
Other horror movies all have hot stars so this one has to too.It goes without saying that the shaky camera work in the film can just come of as irritating.
it had beautiful and not overdosed effects which all the other horror movies use and start to feel to fake after watching for a while..
I just got done watching this movie at the theater.I actually REALLY enjoy the hand-held-horror flicks ("The Blair Witch Project", "Cloverfield", "Chernobyl Diaries", "The Descent", etc.) so as one would expect, I was fairly excited to see this film.
(The 2009 movie "Triangle" offers a good example of this).In conclusion, if the idea of venturing deep underground to explore the mysteries of an abyss intrigues you, I recommend watching "The Descent" instead.
I am really not a fan of the "found footage" gimmick anyway, or horror flicks in general (besides The Shining), so maybe I am just not the right audience for this movie.
There was ONE legitimate jump scare, some pretty good locations and sets, a couple shocking moments with some alright blood/gore, but other than that, this movie would be a complete waste of money, in my opinion.
Maybe a horror junkie or a fan of the shaky-cam, "found footage" sub-genre of films might enjoy this, but I highly recommend you save your money for something much more original and not so incredibly idiotic and cringe-worthy in all the WRONG ways!-B.
The only good thing I'll have after the experience is that, whatever I watch in my next visit to the cinema will be, compared to this, a masterpiece.Yet another movie where they use the first person camera not to show any clear image, and if that fails..
But enough with "found footage" - let it R.I.P. FOREVER, please.I didn't give a damn about Scarlet or George or whoever else the writers decided to sacrifice to the scary movie gods - boring-ass characters.
Watching this movie was like going to Knott's Scary farm, stuff just exists to scare you and we'll tie it in with some guilt stuff that these people carry around and bang, formula for terrible movie.Also, for the first time in the history of ever, I actually got motion sickness watching this "found footage" shiftiest.
Kudos, AASB, kudos.But, there is some imagery throughout, some nice atmosphere the movie creates and that works well but its just too deep int the mucky-muck to rescue this garbage.The last shot though, or rather the final scene at the end is very well filmed and actually had me tripping out trying to decipher the physics of it.too long, didn't read - trite over-intelligent characters, scary stuff pops out, spooky sounds equals really bad scary movie.
There are people still that like to watch movies with amateur cameras???
There's no effort from the director duping that...blairwitch was original...then the others came...and even project x, all the same thing...they love to move the camera so viewers think that's real...come on, a really scary movie was "the others" with a great actress like Nicole Kidman???I just paid less than 5 dollars and left the theater, totally disappointed...I know that horror movies we're lets say "invented" in 70s and 80s...but one thing is scary movie and another is just get scare cos of the noise that they put when everybody is quite mixed with a hot teenager Indiana jones that knows EVERYTHING...
Sorry, not for me...I started thinking that this web page Is better to read it after u watch the movie, cos before change ur expectations in the very wrong way.
Assembling a team of plucky urban explorers, she ventures into the dark network of tunnels where horror awaits.As Above, So Below references classical art and literature and historical legends in an attempt to add a degree of intelligence to proceedings, but what director John Erick Dowdle's film ultimately boils down to is an oft confusing, very dark (as in you can't see what is happening) and derivative mess of a film (equal parts The Blair Witch Project, National Treasure, and The Descent) that basically consists of an hour and a half of repetitive meandering through confined passageways while assorted inexplicable supernatural occurrences terrify the characters (but rarely the viewer).Dowdle does admittedly conjure up quite a bit of atmosphere along the way, making the absolute most of his creepy, claustrophobic location, whilst the deciphering of long lost clues and the discovery of hidden treasure adds a modicum of fun, but the action, much of which proves as difficult to unravel as an Aramaic riddle, soon becomes tiresome, while the over-used found footage/mockumentary style only serves to annoy..
Awful, simply awful, a genre that has been done to death and none of them very well (despite what the critic tells you) first person cam, torches that flicker on and off at crucial/exciting moments, so you cant see a damn thing most of the time (what there is of crucial/exciting moments to see that is) "is it round the corner" rubbish,characters that you find very hard to believe, or even care about.100 PhDs and goodness knows what at 20 odd..right..I would not of minded if the actor in question playing the part had come across as "uber-intelligent"..but she does not.
The only reason i have given it a 2 and a bit of a (possible) spoiler here, is for the effort it must of taken getting a car and a piano down in to the Catacombs...one point for each item, but other than that..and just to add one more cliché to an over cliché'd film..avoid it like the plague..and go watch paint dry..
This one was yet another found footagesque type horror film with a relatively low budget and a mainly unknown, but familiar cast.This movie didn't really work for me.
Some of the supernatural elements were interesting, but in this case the feeling I got was that I had to be there to really know how scary it was.For some reason, watching this, I wasn't nearly as terrified as the people in the movie were.
It likely would have been better to make this just as a movie rather than a found footage film.
Lots of noise and horror elements we've seen before thrown in here and some pretty weak bad guys make for some yawns unfortunately.The ending was way to tidy as well.
I know this won't happen though because these movies basically print money because they are so cheap to make.In the end, this movie came a little too late into the genre and the story felt a little hokey to me...like I said earlier, I guess you had to be there..
In fact, as I watched it, I couldn't help but wish that someone would adapt it for the much more suitable genre.The film's premise and basic plot are intelligent enough to enjoy, and as usual the blend of ancient mythologies in a "relic-hunt" (as per Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider) is something I would have liked to explore more fully.
Unfortunately since this is a feature film that had to enclose its dose of jump-scares and shaky-cam, it set up a great first act and then proceeded to dash it thoroughly with standard horror-movie tropes for the entire rest of its run-time.
There's not much more to it than that.I have complaints about the way the "found footage" format is employed, but the problems are so common and inherent that they should just be taken for granted.Ultimately this film hasn't been made for the type of horror fan that loves the genre, it's for people who like going to the cinema and occasionally watching a relatively scary film.
The ending of the film is predictable, just as many horror film endings are becoming and at many times throughout the film, pointless, sentimental things would happen which have no meaning to the plot and make the viewer lose touch with the film (e.g. a supposedly cute "lets confess our love even though we may die in the next five minutes" scene).
Obviously not all of the characters were going to be great but Scarlett, George, and Benji where great and they save any of the weaker performances.Overall I think it was a well acted found footage film that feels a lot like a video game in ways that aren't bad.
This movie is based upon a team of explorers who venture into the catacombs that lies beneath the streets of Paris in search of treasure but they end up discovering something else.The movie starts off with great expectations but as it goes forward towards the middle we will start to feel that nothing is happening but I would say to wait as the rest is just a roller-coaster of chills.
First and foremost I despise the sub-genre that is found footage but, I always give the films a chance, no matter how awful I think the movie will be.
This found footage horror movie actually adds something different to the sub-genre which is searching for a long lost treasure.
I don't hate found footage movies, I'm always open to the idea but, when the idea is executed so poorly like in this film, I have to call it out for being the trash it really is.
Fans of the found footage sub-genre will likely watch this film at some point but, the best idea is to wait for home video and rent the movie.
For horror movie fans who really aren't into found footage, there is no reason to ever watch this awful film.
The catacombs is an eerie sort of place already, adding a horror movie to the mix seemed like a good combination but what it brought was the worst movie I've ever seen.I didn't expect the movie to be filmed via a video camera held by a character the entire duration but it was.
I have not watched a 'horror/thriller' movie in years that I could walk away from feeling that the writers and producers actually gave me the benefit of the doubt of having respectable intelligence.
There are some cool treasure hunting moments, the characters are likable enough, and watching the main character uncover hidden ancient clues is pretty fun.Then the movie shifts into horror mode and this was its weak point for sure.
Almost as if they wrote 3/4's of the movie to be an adventure flick then decided at the last minute to make it a horror film.
I would pretty much watch any horror movie that opens in theater whether it looks good or bad.
Look out for some hidden 'easter eggs' in this movie that give away the ending even before you see it - and if you already know about the ending then you'll be re-watching the film wishing you had seen these things earlier.
It has so many horror movie cliches that I would not recommend this film to anyone.
It just looked like another PG-13 found footage horror film.
I was on a horror movie website (at work) and an article came up about the film.
And finding out that it was R Rated, I jumped online to give it a watch.As Above So Below shot found footage style by director John Erick Dowdle, follows Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) as she and a group of people venture into the catacombs in Paris looking for a specific artifact and treasure.
But for fans of layered films in their horror with some nice jump scares this is a good watch..
It was original in some tones – the Paris catacombs, the plot line of the film and the characters themselves, but also, it was just boring.
You'll get your answer pretty quickly, I'll tell you that.The best thing about this is that a lot of it was actually filmed on location in the real catacombs.
It looks and feels very similar to dozens of other found footage horror movies in recent years.
Really good for what it is: a modestly-budgeted B-grade horror flick in an exotic location.Best reason to watch this movie: The catacombs.
There's an actual reason to film the movie this way: the characters illegally enter the catacombs on an exploration mission.
If you're in any way into your 'modern horror' films, you'll already know that 'found footage' movies are basically entirely filmed from the perspective of the cameraman (using some loose pretext of 'needing' to film absolutely everything that everyone does).
The chases come in the second act, but, if you've seen any other found footage film, you'll know what's coming.You won't care about the characters.