As Above, So Below (2014)

So much average

Sadly Over-hyped

Just perfect...

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

The poster for this scary movie was very recognisable, the Eiffel Tower upside with a pattern of skulls underneath, it was obvious where the movie was set, but I didn't know what to expect, I hoped for something relatively scary or interesting. Basically in Iran in Aramaic, young alchemy scholar Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) discovers a riddle on the head stone of Nicholas Flamel, the alchemist believed to have discovered the Philosopher's Stone, and finds a rose key that may help her to find the historical stone. The tombstone riddle pinpoints the location of the Philosopher's Stone as being in Paris, France, she travels there, meeting up with her former boyfriend George (Ben Feldman) and her cameraman Benji (Edwin Hodge). They conclude that the stone is below the Parisian Catacombs, with their guide Papillon (François Civil); his girlfriend Souxie (Marion Lambert); and their friend Zed (Ali Marhyar), they go into the deep uncharted tunnels. But the explorers get more than they bargained for, when they do find the stone and remove it, they are trapped in the hellish underground maze, with demonic visions and chambers collapsing on them. One by one, team members venture too far, and suffer bloody deaths, until only Scarlett, George and Zed are left, and they realise that the only way out, strangely, is to go down, as seen earlier on a Gnostic Star of David, an artefact symbolising the notion "As above, so below". Eventually the remaining survivors find what appears to be a manhole cover above them, they jump through it, and find themselves the right way up on the streets of Notre Dame, they are now safe. The story is inspired by Dante's Inferno stuff, and the film is presented as a "found footage" movie, there are some reasonable gory and Blair Witch style apparition moments that keep you interested, it is not the scariest thing you will watch, but it's not a bad horror. Okay!

A group plans to make a party out of exploring for treasure beneath the streets of Paris. Descending into the dank, dark and bone covered twisted catacombs under the busy streets; these explorers hope to find a cache of treasure in the uncharted passages cluttered with bones. Wondering about all the souls that belonged to those bones, this dim-witted troupe stumbles around and feel they have discovered some dark secret. A cave-in blocks the entrance they used and quickly madness, paranoia and fear begins taking a toll. Is the only exit to be found a gateway to hell itself? Plenty of jumps, twitches and scares to go around. Worth every bit of its R rating.Cast members include: Perdita Weeks, Edwin Hodge, Theo Cholbi, Ben Feldman, Francois Civil, Marion Lambert and Emy Levy.

Apparently all horror films made after 1999 get a 6 star rating on IMDb so without seeing the film ...its a 6! i apparently need 5 lines of text for them to accept this review so i guess ill just keep talking till i get to 5 lines. the modern horror movie seems only capable of get a....OK that 5 im done

After the last scene the movie left me with a sense that it could have done so much more with very little extra effort. The pretext for the events is extremely bland and just as unrealistic as some of the tings the main character say to each other every now and then, while the two main actors are presented as a poor imitation of Lara Croft and Nathan Drake which again I wasn't a fan of. But apart from that and the fact that quite a few things are told other than shown it's a good horror movie. The middle is jam packed with really unusual visuals and ideas, most of the times quite well executed. All in all a surprising and entertaining movie that I would definitely suggest to a fellow horror movie fan.