Review #269: As Above, So Below (2014)

This review was originally written in October 2023.

Gabe's Horror Movie October Review #23 - As Above, So Below (2014)

As Above, So Below is a found-footage style film that follows Scarlett, an archaeologist, as she ventures into the catacombs beneath Paris with a group of urban explorers to try and find the hidden tomb of Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher's Stone. However, their journey is a dangerous one, with twists and turns that bring up horrors of the past as they mirror the journey taken by Dante Alighieri. Will they be able to overcome their personal demons, or will they be forever lost in the endless passages beneath the city?

To be brief, I think this is a fantastic movie and any negative things I have to say about it are going to be pedantic and will be layered with criticisms of the found-footage style as a whole. So if you don't want to hear any of that, I'll just say right here that I really think this is one of the better found-footage movies out there, and this one has enough adventure and has relatively little gore and only a handful of jumpscares so I would recommend this one to basically anybody, even people who don't like horror (even if they don't like found-footage horror specifically). I'm probably gonna give this one a 9/10, it's really good and you should go watch it.

Now, to get into some of the pedantry.

I've said this before, and I'll say it again: one of the reasons I don't like found-footage horror is because the format really invites scrutiny in a way traditional horror doesn't. The whole purpose of found-footage is to make it feel real, to make it feel like this is a thing that actually happened, because the more it feels like a real record of actual events, the easier it is to let yourself be swept up in the tension and dread because "If it really happened to someone else, it could really happen to me!" But so many found-footage horror films, this one included, want to have their cake and eat it too: they want you to be drawn in by the realism, but they also are using the format as a cheap way to avoid putting a lot of work into the writing, acting, and special effects. And that causes people like me to be pulled OUT of the movie more than I'm pulled IN, because if this is a quote-unquote "real record of actual events", why does it feel so scripted? Why do some of the effects look cheap and fake? Why do the characters' actions feel convenient and unsubtle in ways that real people don't?

To an extent I also want to criticize media that romanticizes archaeology: how are all of these intricate and delicate mechanisms still working perfectly after centuries of disuse? How is it that the main characters always manage to solve every puzzle, and usually on their first try? Obviously the real answer is "because it's a movie, and it wouldn't be fun to watch them lock themselves in a room and die because the gears for that secret door rusted shut a hundred years ago" and "because the writers wanted to impress you with their knowledge of medieval esoterica, and it wouldn't be fun if the characters got stumped and had to go home because they didn't recognize that was a Ptolemaic hinge". And sure, I get those as reasons, but again, the movie wants me to think of this as a real record of actual events so that I'll be more engaged, so it's a double-edged sword when I use that perspective to question how unrealistic the non-supernatural events of the story are.

But like I said at the beginning, I really like this film. I think there's a ton of extremely creepy events- like when they go through a passage to avoid an area that's supposedly cursed, only to find out that they somehow were in the cursed area all along. And the part at the very end when they lift the manhole cover blew my mind. There's lots and lots of details in this movie that reward multiple views, even if there's a few spots that make less sense the more you think about them. But at its core this is a very fun adventure movie, with some really creepy bits, and some super-satisfying twists and turns. I definitely recommend this movie to anyone who can put up with a shaky camera for 90 minutes.

Overall Rating: 9/10 Gates of Hell

Exclusive Opportunity: This is the first ever production that secured permission from the French government to film in the catacombs! Which means, when the characters are walking past bones set into the walls, those are likely REAL bones!