Watching the trailers for As Above, So Below, I didn't think the movie would be scary. I was quite wrong. I also wasn't sure if the story would be good, but having the setting of the movie be inside the Parisian catacombs, at least that interested me.
The script for the story was written in well enough to serve its purpose, though it was slightly difficult to believe someone who looks like Perdita Weeks, and as young as she was, could be so well-versed in archaeology, fluent in so many languages, have multiple masters degrees, and is a "catacomb raider". But being a Hollywood horror movie, the formula of getting beautiful actors and slowly killing them one at a time still triumphs.
But Weeks was a solid performer here together with Ben Feldman. That claustrophobic feeling set in quite early on when Edwin Hodge's character got stuck in a pile of bones. I thought that scene was done really well to get the audience into that tight, enclosed area.
That seemed to be what writer-director John Erick Dowdle is good at, as he's also done Devil, where everything happened inside an elevator, and also Quarantine which I have not seen.
And the building of tension was quite good too, though some of the plot points weren't explored fully or explained.
There was one fright scene that was really cool. It was so scary that I could even feel everyone in the cinema jumped. One guy even screamed out loud and that became funny after the fright.
I didn't like how those "stone monsters" were portrayed. They had no reasons to be there, the story never explained it, and they go down way too easily with a simple shove.
But I particularly liked how the movie ended. It was just freaky. This was one time where I didn't mind how almost nothing that happened was explained. I thought for this movie and this story, it wasn't too out of place because who can say what happens down inside the catacombs.
If this makes enough money, I have a feeling they may make a second one.
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