“He’s Dead”

Damian Gordon

South Campus Bureau Chief

    When you come out of a horror movie laughing, something has gone terribly wrong…or maybe right in this case.

    “As Above, So Below” is about a team of explorers that search the catacombs of Paris, where they uncover the horrors beneath the streets they walk. Centering on Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), she uncovers a clue in Iran that leads her and others into madness.

    This one of the very few horror movies that gives legitimate reasons for why the characters can’t leave or have a reason to be there. It’s not hard to feel sympathy for these characters because they’re not dumb teens tripping into Jason’s machete.

    When everything starts to go wrong, everybody else but Scarlett is smart enough to want out. She has the power of being the lead actress, while everyone else with less screen time knows better— to fear for their lives. 

    Before it became somewhat of a joke, where the movie shines is in the character department. A sense of fear for many of these characters’ lives can be felt.

    Papillion (François Civil) was the standout actor as his charisma carried the movie; he played the team’s guide and it would be hard for anyone to not want to follow him. I look forward to seeing him in other projects in the future.

    A thing about these “found footage” movies is that when the interesting events start to happen, nothing can be seen because the camera is all over the place.

    There are points throughout the movie where it’s going “hey, there’s so much scary stuff going on,” while shaking the camera. That’s great Movie, except nobody can see any of it and it feels like you’re hiding the fact that nothing’s actually going on.

    “As Above, So Below” had some tension up to a certain point halfway through the movie, but then lost it due to the fact that nothing was happening and anything that did just received laughs from the audience.

    The acting all around was very solid; it was just the dialogue that dragged it down sometimes. Some of the moments would have been frightening if there wasn’t a horrible line before it making the crowd giggle.

    Scarlett enters a tomb to find a mummy lying on a table and says, “He’s dead.” Now, I may not know much about mummies, but one important fact about them is that they’re all dead.

    Near the end, everything gets crazy and it feels like an amusement park’s fun house gone wrong. This is where the handy cam truly works in pulling the viewer. 

    When the movie introduced Benji (Edwin Hodge), the token black guy, as soon as he came on screen, the first thought that came to mind was “R.I.P.” 

    In a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare, part of the movie features a trapped Benji, and I found myself squirming in the seat and even finding it harder to breathe.

    As an adventure movie with horror elements, “As Above, So Below” would succeed. It takes the audience on an entertaining quest, but it’s not so much on the level of being a horror film.

    This is a great date night movie. Its runtime is not long and whoever is scared of horror movies would definitely be able to watch this.