As Above, So Below
DIRECTOR: John Erick Dowdle
CAST: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar
CLASSIFICATION: 13HLV
RUNNING TIME: 93 minutes
RATING: **
WHEN it comes to movies, my attention is piqued by the word “horror”. Sadly, movies these days fail to cause you to jump in your seat. But I’m ever the optimist.
As Above, So Below starts with heaps of promise. Archaeologist Scarlet Marlowe (Weeks) smuggles her way into Iran, seeking out the Philosopher’s Stone.
When she returns to Paris, she gets her ex, George (Feldman) to help her translate what she’ found.
All clues lead to a pioneering discovery located deep in the catacombs lying beneath Paris.
Fortunately, she secures the help of Papillon (Civil) and his friends as travel guides on her expedition and refuses to pay heed to the myths about something evil lurking below.
As Above, So Below unfolds in a reality format. It explores human reactions under tenuous circumstances.
On the horror front, it doesn’t extract any knee-jerk reactions with the sporadic bouts of creepiness, even with those strange cult rituals going on.
This movie has a truly uninspired premise and wallows in so much inanity that it might as well have been buried in the catacombs, too!
If you liked The Blair Witch Project (or any of the spin-off movies) and The Ring you will enjoy this.