Wednesday, September 3, 2014

As Above / So Below - Movie Review


As Above / So Below is a film written by Drew Dowdle and John Erick Dowdle, who also directed, who have brought to the screen other genre movies like Devil and Quarantine. This found footage style horror movie stars Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, François Civil, and some other people you've probably never heard of.


Scarlett (Weeks) has been on an archaeological mission to uncover historical secrets her father was unable to find before his untimely death. After unlocking a key piece of evidence that could lead her to an incredible discovery, she enlists the help of her former lover George (Feldman) to help her travel into the dark and dangerous depths of the French catacombs. Of course, there are ancient secrets awaiting them that are best left undisturbed.


So, this is pretty basic genre film making with minimal character development and not much care in keeping a cohesive narrative in place. All the proper notes are hit with the hero characters discovering clues that send them scurrying down into places they know they should never, ever go, but are still unable to stop themselves. There are also the requisite peripheral characters who you know are ultimately going to be fodder for those scary, bump in the night things that make you jump out of your seat. Even with a paint-by-numbers approach, I still found the movie to be entertaining and it actually has more than a few scares and lots of tension built up by things lurking around dark corners.


This is definitely one of those movies where you need to leave your critical brain outside the theater and just prepare yourself for some good, old fashioned, junk food cinema. I probably enjoyed this movie way more than I should have, but even with all it's flaws, it still managed to give me exactly what I was looking for. If what you need is a quick horror movie fix, As Above / So Below does an adequate job of delivering the goods with lots of scary things, creepy noises, and just a tiny bit of gore splattered in for good measure.




 


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