AS ABOVE SO BELOW

First, I actually liked some elements of the film. I thought the story was interesting and paranormal elements were cool. The weaving of something real (the catacombs) into this horror genre film is a quality I like in these films. The acting was okay though I did feel the lead female was a bit too hard headed as the film went along. There were a couple nice scare type moments. I thought they could have really played up the entering Hell area with either more style or makeup/visual effects. Second, this is what made me almost completely hate the film. Hand Held Camera usage. I've never Ever EVER sat through a film as just crazy over the top with the camera like this film. It was all over the place. In and out of focus at times. The light going in and out frequently. Camera going every which way. Omg. It was really ultra distracting as never before. Yeah, so that really just almost made the film unwatchable let alone rewatchable if you actually like stuff in the film like I did.

Grade - D

As Above/So Below turns on a group of intrepid archaeologists and urban explorers who descend into the catacombs beneath Paris in search of the philosopher's stone, the mythical elixir of life. (In this continuity, Dumbledore clearly did not destroy it!) A type of treasure-map scenario conjuring memories of Indiana Jones or the Declaration of Independence as absconded with by Nicolas Cage turns into a nightmare—for the characters and for the audience—when a cave-in precedes a night of geographical confusion, thunderous noises, and ambiguous supernatural presences. To be blunt, this film is a dud. There is not much content here, and almost none of it deserves even guarded praise. I grant there are a few fleeting, yet interesting moments involving characters experiencing macabre visions of unresolved tragedies or wrongdoings from the past (a father's suicide for one, an abandoned child for another). And the actors, each no doubt glad to be in any studio film and hopeful for more substantial roles in the future, acquit themselves around as well as can be expected considering the mediocre and thin nature of the project as a whole. This is to say, they argue and gasp and run and scream for their lives with relative authenticity.

The film's flaws are legion, no pun intended. There is a thorough and truly dire dearth of imagination on display. These characters may very well have climbed via the catacombs into the depths of Hades itself (Dante is referenced), but much of the film consists of them racing to and fro in what could be the same faux-stone set. The vast potential for indelible otherworldly imagery is almost entirely ignored. Satan's playground is simply tedious here. This is also a film where I found the found-footage presentation extremely grating. I say this as a person who considers The Blair Witch Project an enduring favorite and has enjoyed most of the Paranormal Activity sequels, too. Here, however, the constant up, down, right, and left movement of the camera made me a tad nauseous, a problem compounded by a strobe-style editorial technique utilized during every action and suspense sequence to emulate, I presume, the characters' put-upon, GoPro-style cameras succumbing to and then withstanding abuse. It also, of course, allows the low-budget film to fragment and disorient its set pieces rather than having any of them unfold with clarity or elegance. The awful aesthetic combines with at times ponderous, at times rushed screenplay to render certain third-act plot points more convoluted than they have any right to be.

D

Like nghtvsn said, this features the worse use of handheld camera that I've ever seen before in my life. It was incredibly distracting and made me care even less what was going on. I thought the entire thing was boring. It could have been an interesting horror flick in the right hands but it was just horrible.

D

OMFG, that bad, guys?

There was a scene near the end that kept cutting to black for 3-5 seconds for a minute or two (or at least it felt that long, I don't know if it actually was) that was so distracting you couldn't tell what the fuck was going on. By that point I didn't care one way or another what was actually happening but it was obnoxious.

Surprisingly decent. It took a while to get into and at first I thought it kind of sucked, but it got a lot more enjoyable as it went on and actually had some creepy moments. Not great but not bad.

6/10 (B-)

Yeah this wasn't that bad. Atleast, the ending was something different than your typical FF ending that has been done so many fucking times. The characters weren't much, but I wasn't annoyed by them either like so many of these other movies.

It moved along at a good pace, and had solid moments of tension like the bit where that dude got stuck in the tunnel, even if it was a complete ripoff of The Descent. The creepy bits were done effectively enough IMO.

It played into claustrophobic fears quite well and was a decent enough film for it's first hour but then it just becomes the most generic of horror films in it's last third. Shame.

As Above, So Below

Ok, I can get on board with the whole academic exploring history angle, and going into the catacombs where they find the gates of hell, then strange shit happens, people die, hallucinations occur etc. etc. But unless you're petrified of claustrophobia, the film is almost over before they try and scare you, and even then the scares are bad jump-scares. Then she turns into action woman and runs around the catacombs on her own, palming rock men out of the way and healing her friend's fatal gash to the neck. If you're scared of people walking slowly at the end of long passages, then this is the horror film for you. I expected to see more of hell, but instead they wasted the opportunity to scare us in the way that Insidious did when that world was entered. I could continue talking about the acting or whatever, but in this type of film only one thing matters; is it scary? And the answer is a definite no. I guess the budget impacted what they could potentially do, which just means that I add this film to the long line of wannabes in the fount-footage genre. Nothing has matched up to Paranormal Activity yet and I'm sure it won't.

D+