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tonight's feature: As Above So Below (2014) on Prime
(SPOILERS!) If you dug The Da Vinci Code but thought it needed shakier cameras, some freaky horror bits and a singular focus of going deeper and deeper into the catacombs, this little movie might be for you. If you're claustrophobic, hate being lost, loathe found footage films or can't stand hearing people scream in French, you might want to reconsider this one.
Young Scarlett Marlowe, a young, accomplished scholar who speaks six languages (two of them dead) and is a black belt in Krav Maga (but weirdly never seems to use it). Scarlett is in search of the philosopher's stone, which is allegedly capable of turning base metals into gold or silver and granting eternal life. She finds the "Rose Key" in the opening scenes which allows her to use codes to solve the riddles of the Flamel's headstone(?), which points to the location of the philosopher's stone under the catacombs in Paris. In order to get there, they (Scarlett, her former fling George, and Benji, a cameraman prone to hysterical screaming) have to find a rogue "tour guide" willing to get them in the "off-limits" area. They end up recruiting a guy named Pap and he brings his girlfriend Souxie and his friend Zed for the adventure.
After arguing about going the hard way (climbing over bones) or the easy way (breaking down a blocked entrance), they opt for the former. What follows is a ton of claustrophobic screaming scenes, repeating what seems like the same locations over and over, underground rivers, arguing, getting mad at each other, underground rivers of blood, some topless chicks singing a chant, a guy they thought was dead, a room full of treasure, various traps, a ringing phone, George's childhood piano, some dehydrated medieval knight bodies, a haunted this, a haunted that, golems(?), a guy in a black robe in a chair, all desperately weirder going deeper and deeper as the entryways become blocked. After a while I was just expecting them to meet Satan and be crushed by some boulders. Kind of hoping for it, anyway. Well, they kept going down further and further, maybe tempting you to turn off the movie, and in a nine-circles-of-hell sort of way, they end up seeing shit they regret from their pasts so you think it's definitely hell. There's one amazing jump scare and they finally start dying. Scarlett sees her father hanging in a noose a few times. At one point Pap says "Are we dead?" and I'm thinking "I sure hope so."
But by the very end there's a major head-scratching twist and you're surprised, but also wondering "How did they get the footage off all the cameras they left behind?" So it's a bit of a mixed bag. I didn't hate it, but there were definitely some intriguing things going on. Maybe the best thing about this film is probably the poster art. 6 philosopher's stones out of 10.
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