It’s a rare thing for me catch a horror movie at the theater. More uncommon is the occasion I take the opportunity to rent a recent horror release on home video. I love the genre, but it seems I can usually trust my peers in the criticism community to let me know when a new one is worth seeing. The rarest event of all is the creation of a fright film in the found footage format which inspires anything beyond a handful of jump-scares. I am sad to report As Above/So Below is not one of those rare movies, and its surprising potential for greatness (or at least pretty damn goodness) only makes it that much more disappointing.
Scarlet Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) is an anthropologist and archeologist desperate to finish her father’s work in discovering the fabled Philosopher’s Stone. Her endeavor is being catalogued via Berka-cam when we open with her in Iran, then by a solo documentary filmmaker in France. There, she assembles a small team comprised of French hoodlums, and an old fling who is hesitant to join in her quest. The search has lead to the catacombs, and upon entering; the team is haunted by objects from their darkest memories.
To the film’s credit, much of the action is driven by INDIANA JONES-inspired theological fantasy, rather than the simpler concept of a haunted crypt. It seems mythology, the occult, and philosophy surround the treasure they seek, and some fascinating ideas come into play, only to get bored, and move along to some other (more interesting) movie, well before the credits roll. The events couldn’t keep up with my imagination. Every time the team approached the next bleak corner, I wondered if all of this would end in a hopeless nightmare of hellish nonsense. For the finale, the film chose to take a more adventurous turn, and I did not get my hellish nonsense. That’s an awful shame, but the bigger problem starts as soon as the characters begin their ill-planned crusade.
Why would you create this in the nausea-inducing image of the found footage god? I understand its role in reflecting popular culture today, but it was only original the first time (before you, me, and everyone’s grandmother had video tech in their pocket), and it has never looked good. Today, it is tired, and it has never made any damn sense. The minute the film’s documentarian switches on everybody’s pin cameras he installed in their headlamps, we are able to cut around from view to view. So… in the world of the film, someone put all of this together. Who the hell compiled the footage? Some of those cameras (and undoubtedly, anything capturing their images) were lost with the characters that bit the dust. How did all of that information wind up on the screen? These details are hard to ignore, and anytime the cameras are mentioned, you are torn out of the movie as these thoughts come rushing back to mind.
The creepy ideas would be so much better served by a more cinematic viewing experience, and by allowing those ideas to chaotically bloom into something more interesting.
Where is my hellish nonsense? I want my hellish nonsense!
