In what’s perhaps the weirdest not-sequel to “Lara-Croft:
Tomb Raider,” found footage horror oddity “As Above, So Below” manages to
continually up the ante of its premise while continually failing to deliver on
it. It’s a gimmicky movie obsessed with
nodding to genre tropes—both from horror-films and adventure pulp—but lacks any
sense of cathartic pay-off. Accidentally, the film does occasionally slip into an
anarchic absurdity that keeps things moving but ultimately fumbles its B-movie
aspirations.
Scarlett
(Perdita Weeks) is an academic explorer continuing her father’s life-long
research of the mysterious sorcerer known as Nicolas Flemel, on the search for
the Philosopher’s Stone. After deducing the
location of the stone, hundreds of feet within the catacombs under the streets
Paris, she convinces her old friend and colleague George (Ben Feldman) and her
nervous camera man Benji (Edwin Hodge) to aid in her discovery. A group of street-wise Parisians show the
bullheaded anthropologists the quick ways through the dark corridors and the
secret passages with the hopes of splitting the ancient treasure amongst
themselves, but after getting lost and scared they decide to break through a
forbidden tunnel, later finding themselves circling back on their path, passing
occultists and suffering strange hallucinations tied to the darkest moments of
their personal hells.
Despite
a general sense of ineptitude with its material, this film does have the
benefit of great natural location, ripe for horror potential. The caves and
catacombs, some of which are a set, some of which are not, certainly create a
building sense of claustrophobia and chaos, especially when the perspective
shifts between each member of the team—all of which are recording with camera
headsets. The ‘found-footage’ conceit,
now beyond over-played, actually has a dramatic purpose here, as the limited
camera placement allows for effective build-up and surprise when our characters
are unable to see ten feet ahead in any direction. However, when we do finally creep around the
corner to see the boogie men or the Satanists or the mysterious apparitions the
accumulated dread exhales in disappointingly pedestrian horror imagery. Never mind the internal logic of this film as
the character’s run headfirst into further danger after getting picked off one
by one, viewing multiple forms unexplainable terror, but somehow manage to avoid
it once they need to backtrack to retrace their steps.
The
first-person perspective combined with the constant puzzle-solving to advance
from one set-piece to another quickly starts to resemble the storytelling mechanics
a survival-oriented videogame, to the point where I began to reach out to the
screen with my hands clasped around an invisible controller, leaning in my seat
and toggling left and right to avoid the spooks. But, in this regard, I have to say that with
your expectations placed appropriately low “As Above, So Below” is the kind of
Sunday matinée schlock that has a base-level (though not entirely intentional) entertainment
value. It isn’t terribly committed to
being scary, and you might wish that “Quarantine” director John Erick Dowell
would have utilized his unique location with a better screenplay, but as a
grown-up Goonies-like adventure or virtual haunted-house ride it almost, just
barely, works.
Grade: C-
Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Sep-2014
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