AS ABOVE SO BELOW

In the spirit of the season shift, I ran out and caught AS ABOVE SO BELOW yesterday. The found footage style movie is penned and directed by the infamous Dowdle brothers John and Drew who brought you films like Quarantine The Poughkeepsie Tapes and the M. Night Shamalamadingdong produced Devil. Although you might be ready to check out right now, I'll ask you to hold on for just another minute. The flick centers itself around a young Indiana Jones-like archeologist, played by Perdita Weeks, who is on a quest to follow in her father's footsteps and find the Philosopher's Stone of alchemy legend which she believes to be buried deep within the famous Catacombs of Paris. Her quest brings her to enlist the help of a crew of French guides, her ex-partner and a videographer as she ventures deep within the unreached regions of the largest mass grave in the world. The adventurers get more than they bargained for however, as their search for the supernatural object brings them in contact with supernatural forces that none of them expected.

Despite what the trailers would have you believe, this movie is actually more of a mixture of the adventure and horror genres rather than a straight up, predictable horror flick which gives it a little bit of a different flavor than traditional scary movie fare. Have no doubt though, there are more than a few scary moments here and the overall freehand shaky-cam style of the film cranks up the claustrophobia and the tension to 11. That being said, the movie doesn't cheap out in the same way that so many other found footage films have in the past and it's actually quite refreshing to see a movie like this that actually knows what it wants to do. It's well put together, there are decent special effects and although it's lacking on sufficient character development, the actors do a decent job of acting and it stays tight and interesting throughout.

I have to say that before walking into this movie my expectations were really low, but over the course of 90 minutes it really made a believer out of me. It's more than just a run of the mill cheap horror flick and I recommend it. As Above So Below earns itself a 3.5...out of 5.