Found footage movies are not automatically worse than their regular counterparts. CHRONICLE is a great example of how the style can elevate a movie by creating a sense that the audience is in the middle of the action. AS ABOVE, SO BELOW makes it seem more like a cost-cutting measure than an artistic maneuver. The film also makes a lot of choices that make the end result confusing, and the value the movie does have in some genuine horror becomes muddled through its disorienting camera work and inconsistencies in the plot.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW follows Scarlet Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) as she dives deep into the catacombs underneath Paris in order to find The Philosopher’s Stone, but instead discovers visions of the group’s haunting past and endless tunnels. She goes exploring with the help of her ex and obvious love interest George (Ben Feldman), and a team of horror bait including a documentarian.
The movie does have some genuine horror. Some of the most effective parts come from the sense of claustrophobia and hopelessness that evolves from moving forward in the tiny tunnels as more and more strange things begin to happen. The creepy visions in the catacombs are slightly creepier with the limited vision of the found footage format, but that’s where most of the positives end.
The parts of the movie outside the catacombs are thoroughly boring. Just because you can have a character spew exposition directly at the camera doesn’t mean it should be done. The acting is subpar and fails until the end to convince you that these characters are real, making it also difficult to feel afraid for them. The shaky cam’s purpose seems to be that of disorienting you long enough so that you can’t get a good view of the fake-looking sets… or fake acting. Everything does pick up near the end of the movie, when the shaky camera starts to add to the experience, and the film becomes quite entertaining to watch as most things come together.
But still, too many items don’t come together well. The movie regularly goes against itself on the size of the catacombs and which walls are blocked and which ones aren’t. It starts off with a sort of NATIONAL TREASURE or THE DA VINCI CODE feel as it teaches us about the history of alchemy, and has the main character follow clues in order to find the catacombs. But once underneath Paris, everything boils down to the main characters reciting the next line to a poem we only heard once, and figuring something out that means next to nothing to us. It feels like a waste of time to a audience that doesn’t know what’s going on.
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW could have been a good movie. Director John Erick Dowdle had a plan in mind about the development of his characters and the interesting history of Nicholas Flammel and The Philosopher’s Stone, but too many things stop the production from making sense and it often just gives you a headache or relies on jump scares (which I am currently petitioning to stop any movie from having more than one) to move its horror.
