Writer(s): Dowdle and Drew Dowdle
Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge, and François Civil
Scarlett is an explorer, and of course, the focus of a
documentary, so we can have lots of shaky camera footage. She’s looking for hidden treasure deep under Paris, hidden inside a
series of tunnels known as The Catacombs, where millions of people are
buried. She asks for help from her
friend, George, and then tracks down a local who’s familiar with the
underground system. A bunch of them die,
a couple of them live, and the movie is over.
Does any of this sound familiar? Unless you’ve never seen a horror movie
before, it should all sound familiar.
This is just another tired entry into the “found-footage” craze, made
popular thanks to the runaway success of The Blair Witch Project. Only that was sixteen years ago…shouldn’t it
be about time for Hollywood
to find the next fad, instead of continuing to beat a horse that’s been long
dead for at least five years now?
The first half of the movie features a lot of talking, as
Scarlett rambles on incessantly about the aforementioned treasure. You can skip all of this part; it’s neither
fascinating, nor necessary to understand the rest of what goes on, being thrown
in simply for the movie to have a rationalization, no matter how thin, for
multiple characters to go deep underground.
It also goes on far too long; by the time the “scares” started
happening, I was almost asleep.
And when the “scares” (term used in the loosest sense of the
word) finally do arrive, the movie takes on the feeling of those haunted houses
you pay to go in at Halloween; it’s just one predictable jump scare right after
another for close to thirty minutes.
There’s no imagination, or any effort on the part of the filmmaking team
to toss us anything original, which is the worst kind of movie; it caters to
the lowest common-denominator, assuming its audience are complete morons that
need our frights spoonfed to us.
Which I guess they’re probably right: Even though this movie shows us nothing new,
it probably made a ton of money, taking advantage of an American public that
revels in watching the same stuff over and over again. How else can you explain how people still
voluntarily pay to watch this asinine drivel?
I borrowed it from the library, but had I paid even a dollar, I would
have felt like I got ripped off. If
you’re over the age of 15, there is absolutely nothing for you to see here.
RECAP: Absolute garbage, from start to finish. The scares are predictable, and when they
finally start happening, which isn’t until somewhere near the hour mark, are
just one lazy jump scare right after another. As Above, So Below, despite its cool title (which is the sole reason
it receives a point), is the worst kind of movie; one that doesn’t even strive
to be anything more than mediocre drivel, yet can’t even reach those lofty
heights. It doesn’t try to show us
anything new, or give us any reason to like it; instead, it’s a product
manufactured solely to rob people, mainly teenagers, the only demographic that
will get any kind of thrill out of a by-the-numbers junkfest like this, of
their hard-earned money. Don’t fall for
it.
RATING: 1/10
TRAILER
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