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Unfortunately, this is yet another movie that can’t quite get off of the ground. This one might have a fairly decent development of plot but the plot development leaves the audience vexed. “As Above So Below” is another one of those creative found-footage films that has plenty of energy. Unfortunately, b’ decor “As Above So Below” fails to be exceptional enough to hold the audiences attention due to its unusual concept. To say the least, horror fans and B-horror film producers among others are not the first ones to complain. If that’s the case, then what’s so bad about watching the film to begin with? Well that is the reason behind the lack of interest that fans have and even in the past fans have been underwhelmed with the thought of exploring new Parisian catacombs and the now updated close up fish eye lense. Everything became too familiar for the makers of this found footage breakout film, “As Above So Below”. Trying to comprehend the inception of this film proves to be ever so hard because it feels like a bad dream. It has the most delightful setting, and in many areas the room feels suitably spooky, which is enhanced by blurry images. But one of the major complaints in the story has to do with the credibility of the head rig and the racing point of view shooting and editing. But once the main characters of the film have picked up their cheap digital helmets, the celebration begins, but not for them.
As it is a ride within a theme park that revolves around a movie, “As Above, So Below” has way too complex of a storyline. The framework is provided by Scarlett (Perdita Weeks). As a skilled linguist, she Kristine is portrayed as a timid explorer looking for the Philosopher’s Stone, Kristine recruits stoic cameraman Benji (Edwin Hodge) and a big-mouthed urban adventurer, Papillon (Francois Civil). With the help of Papillon’s friends Souxie and Zed (Marion Lambert and Ali Marhyar), Kristine and her team begin their hunt for the Stone in the French catacombs and end up finding what seems like some sort of entry to hell. They then are faced with a variety of possessions and possibly haunted objects, like a mix between a soviet telephone and a ridiculously deep pool of blood, a blazing car, and a malnourished raunchy French rave, La Taupe (Cosme Castro) who smells like death.decided to take asylum in a french metropolis.
The story is familiar to ears, and the specification into the story makes sense when it is compared to Berlin’s Grusellkabinett which was built on top of occupation era Nazi bunkers.
It is excessive and directionless, but it is interesting to come across stone gargoyles, witches deprived of nutrition, and hanged men in the midst of a great deal of already creepy setting, provided one accepts that the name of the game is sheer overkill and that it is enjoyable. Furthermore, Weeks and Feldman do not have to do anything to impress critics with their stick figure protagonists’ enthusiasm. They believe in their characters Feldman and Weeks are good enough for that and their characters believe in the exploration that is why they gradually try to come up with new moronic means of reaching the next secret chamber, crawling through the next little hole, and avoiding that one corpse which closely resembles the Bad Seeds’ Warren Ellis. In reality, you won’t be upset by their stereotypical urge to see and do lots of things which a reasonably intelligent person would know better than to do, like removing the hood off the face of a hanged man. It is crazy, but in a movie having the feel of one big cut scene with a video game, in which you cannot skip and are sometimes forced to fast forward, it is not a crusade.
The group of Scarlett, for instance, tries to assert themselves as being people suffering from personal trauma – dead dads, brothers, guys in cars etc., in which case, the movie lags unnecessarily. This is Maureen Evans Portal: Looking for Love in the World of Demons. If you want to meander in microscopic crypts that could lead to hell, in that case, what your life before the Hellmouth was or not makes no difference to me. Or even to you for that matter it’s terraterial dialogue, not a survival horror adventure of an hour and a half. “As Above, So Below” as a motion picture does however at time move forward but only with Elizabeth Eaker as its lead. In this, she is impressive. It’s nowhere close to feeling real, nor convincing but it’s actual acting.
Let me put it this way, I would be willing to endure whatever graphic imagery you may have in store for me be it a half-eaten ghoulish mass or ghost of a long lost dead friend, and the gory visuals of people kissing a notary all around me won’t change my perception. The creators of “As Above, So Below” have at least attempted to differentiate their work from the countless pieces of found-footage material but still hold to the unique structures of the genre. My only comment on their distinctive and impressionistic, even dizzying, camera-work is that even the steeliest of viewers will need a barf bag, a Dasani bottle and a suitable shoulder to lay their head on to hope to avoid getting car sick. The sheer novelty of “As Above, So Below” will make it worth the ticket cost, but you would hesitate before joining the queue for a second time.
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