Review of As Above, So Below (2014) by Thequietgamer — 02 Jan 2015

With characters on the hunt for a legendary historical artifact and solving ancient puzzles by deciphering dead languages and using their historical knowledge, it makes for a better Indiana Jones type film than it does a horror film. Even the lead actress Perdita Weeks makes for a compelling Lara Croft type given here characters knowledge, determination, and accent. It's these elements that make the film compelling, but the horror elements give it the extra something weird to make it unique.

However that's also where the majority of the flaws are present. The found footage style has been done to death by now. It kind of makes sense that these characters would be filming their excursion under ground given the nature of it, but there's nothing new done with this technique to make it exciting. It would've worked without it.

However the real issue is that there just isn't any scares. The same predictable jump tactics are present. Still, while the horror elements fail to evoke any fear they do lead to some memorable moments as the weird things that go on mess with the characters heads. There's a sense of unpredictability that you rarely see in horror movies nowadays.

It's an entertaining movie. One that merges two genres together to create something unique and satisfying. There are some issues that get in the way like the lack of scares and the flat characters (only the main two have anything fleshed out about them), but overall it's still good enough to be worth a watch. My total score for the movie is a 7.5/10.