Movie Review: As Above, So Below
By Bill Wine
KYW Newsradio 1060
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."
The supposed inscription on the entrance to Hell, compliments of Dante, is what confronts the treasure hunters in the horror thriller, As Above, So Below.
But it could also serve as a warning to claustrophobes about what seems to be as you watch it the darkest, most suffocatingly closed-in movie ever made.
As Above, So Below is a found-footage chiller about a team of American travelers who experience disturbing memories of their past, most involving death in one way or another, and visions of their subconscious while exploring the catacombs beneath Paris.
Perdita Weeks stars as Scarlett, a Lara Croft-ish tomb raider and strongly motivated daughter intent on continuing her late father's lifelong attempt to discover the Philosopher's Stone, which legendarily heals wounds, turns base metals into gold, and bestows eternal life.
Ben Feldman (familiar from TV's Mad Men) co-stars as George, an expatriate clock restorer, while Edwin Hodge plays Benji, the obligatory documentary cameraman – the view-finder of all that footage.
This enterprising trio of Yankees then contract the help of three French spelunkers (Francois Civil, Marion Lambert, and Ali Marhyer) as guides for their expedition and the six "cataphiles" (as catacomb enthusiasts call themselves), not knowing whom they'll meet in the vast network of tunnels or when the next cave-in will suddenly occur, head underground.
Way underground.
Claustrophobes, you are hereby twice forewarned.
Director John Erick Dowdle (Devil, Quarantine, The Poughkeepsie Tapes), who co-wrote the script with his producer brother Drew, doesn't mind sprinkling erudite references around while attempting to frighten his audience, but he is so enamored of handheld, shaky-cam cinematography and jump-cut editing, his disorienting film often plays like As Out of Sight, So Out of Mind.
About as claustrophobic (low ceilings, narrow passages, and hip-deep water) as Dowdle's Devil (which took place in an elevator), As Above, So Below conjures a few genuine scares, but for the most part this is a figure-out-what's-happening adventure that proves too annoying and difficult to see clearly to take the trouble.
So we'll explore 2 stars out of 4. Because As Above, So Below leaves us literally and figuratively in the dark and dizzy so often, we spend most of our time wondering how we might donate a tripod to the crew.