The Dowdle brothers love tight spaces. The moviemaking siblings' 2008 thriller Quarantine took place largely in a small apartment building overrun by zombies, while their 2010 chiller Devil played out mainly in a cramped elevator with Satan aboard. Now, the Dowdles (John directs, Drew produces, they both write) burrow beneath Paris into the City of Light's dark, constricted catacombs for their latest exercise in claustrophobic filmmaking.
The story centers on Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks), a determined archeologist and university professor whose father was obsessed with finding the Philosopher's Stone, which, according to legend, can turn ordinary objects into gold and is the key to immortality. Unfortunately, his quest drove him mad, and he eventually committed suicide. Now, plucky Scarlett (the Dowdles say they think of her as a female Indiana Jones) takes up her late dad's pursuit and assembles a team to explore the catacombs, where she believes the precious stone is located. She comes to this conclusion after decoding a few clues in a manner reminiscent of the far-fetched ramblings in National Treasure and The Da Vinci Code. However, the solutions are arrived at much too quickly, which kills the suspense early on. But then, this is a movie about the terror that awaits our intrepid explorers far beneath the streets of Paris, and the Dowdles don't dawdle in plunging us into the bone-filled catacombs where the great majority of the picture was actually filmed.
The Dowdle brothers not only love confined spaces, they also adore the now overused found-footage format. The movie presents itself as a documentary being shot by Scarlett's colleague Benji (a very good Edwin Hodge), who outfits each member of the six-person team with helmet cameras that capture most of the action underground. Warning: If you are not a fan of found footage, then stay far, far away, because As Above, So Below is found footage on steroids. The shaky camera rarely stops moving, twisting, swirling, or spinning. The nausea-inducing gimmick is enough to give viewers motion sickness.
When Scarlett's crew -- which also consists of a guide (Francois Civil), his two assistants (Marion Lambert and Ali Marhyar), and Scarlett's friend George (Mad Men's Ben Feldman) -- descend into the catacombs, the Dowdles do generate some genuine suspense by having the characters crawl through ever-narrowing spaces, swim beneath murky waters to find their way, and drop through circular, well-like holes to continue their journey after a creepy "mole" (Cosme Castro) who lives in the tunnels tells them that "the only way out is down." Unfortunately, down means entering the gates of hell.
As Above, So Below could easily have been titled As the Past, So the Present, since the characters (not all of whom survive, of course) are each forced to face disturbing scenes from their past that haunt their present-day lives after they pass through those not-so-pearly gates. It's intriguing enough to be a great setup for a horror movie, but this isn't it. Scares are few and far between, and are mostly generated through the film's excellent sound design.
"Abandon all hope, ye who enter here" is the dire inscription Scarlett reads at the entrance to hell. Viewers searching for good old-fashioned scares and thrills should heed that same warning before entering the theater.