Review of As Above, So Below (2014) by Greg T — 03 Sep 2014

Ah excellent, another found footage film involving good-looking young people running around in the dark being chased by mysterious subterranean creatures. Haven't seen one of those in - ooh - a week.

Intriguingly though, "As Above, So Below" has a bit more going on than the usual trawl of cliches, a mash-up of "The Descent", "Indiana Jones" and "Event Horizon" which, thanks to its cod-historiography and occasionally unsettling weirdness, actually works quite well and at least distinguishes it from its tedious antecedents.

Scarlett, the kind of university professor no one has ever had, is young, cute, brilliant, and hell-bent on completing her dead father's quest to find the Philosopher's Stone, which you may remember from its cameo in the first "Harry Potter" film.

After a hectic opening in Iraq, she heads with a documentary film-maker to Paris, where she hooks up with a sceptical old friend and a small group of excitable urban explorers to descend beneath the streets of Paris to follow the clues that could lead to eternal life.

Of course, before they've even crawled over thousands of skulls into the deepest recesses of the catacombs we know things aren't going to go well. There's the creepy staring woman who keeps turning up, the naked black mass being conducted in one of the vaults, and the threatening tunnel of terror that even the wankers off the street wouldn't dare crawl into.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg as the explorers follow esoteric clues that fans of Dan Brown will lap up, descending deeper and deeper as things get weirder and weirder. Watching "As Above, So Below" is quite a stressful experience.

The claustrophobia, the mysterious figures flitting around in the shadows, the arcane history, the unidentifiable noises (sounding like Hans Zimmer has gone crazy in the dark with his "Inception" foghorn) all combine to make a film which, if not original, is a least unnerving and even occasionally scary.

Exactly what's going on might remain a mystery, and the conclusion ambiguous and worrying, but it's a fun adventure while it lasts and, while it feels like you're playing "Silent Hill" at times going from room to room and weirdness to weirdness, it's an effective low-budget treat that's worth the effort.