The Horror Movie saga: As Above So Below
Oh, so that’s a horror.
For those who don’t stick around for the length of reviews, here’s the sum up, this is a very scary watch. I do my bit to help the mood with these films, I watch it last thing at night with the lights off and headphones on, and I truly believe those who don’t get scared by horror movies aren’t watching the right ones, or they aren’t taking these measures. There is theme among films of this genre where the audience score is very low and I can see why, but it has very little do with the quality of the film.
The story followed the concept of a documentary being filmed about treasures underground which eventually became a quest into Hell, literally. The protagonists and some locals ventured into the catacombs below Paris. Curiosity for some and greed for others lead to the most harrowing experience of their lives.
The pacing and premise of ‘As above so below’ was fantastic, the sequencing between a regular documentary, slightly creepy POV’s and then genuine terror was so masterfully stitched together that I believed the context. I was effectively a puppet of the film from that moment on, not only was I rocked by every jump-scare, but I was terrified of the scenario they were in. I started to feel the part of all of us that has claustrophobia bubble up to the surface. This was all down to the believability of the documentaries and POV, as well as the acting such as in a scene where Benji the cameraman was having a panic attack.
The shortcoming of this for me was not a blinding error but more the effectiveness subsiding, and once again it came with a scene with more obvious special effects and paired with that was the escalation of the context. This, I feel, made the whole thing suddenly a bit more ridiculous, and then more chaotic rather than really tense. I don’t think this tarnished the film as a whole as the escalation was justified, but it is noteworthy that the last act was less scary than the one prior despite more happening.
Rather than end on the negative, something else that really impressed me, following some quick trivia research, was the whole backstory or ‘Easter eggs’. Plenty of the details in the directing were actually carried out meticulously and with reason, based on the whole context of them visiting Hell, but even while watching the film, the whole new language they translated and the narrative it made really gripped me and at times genuinely terrified me.
Rating: 8/10
