Potential abounds in As Above, So Below—a sort of “Indiana Jones and the Haunted Catacombs”—though the many ideas at play never fully come together. Perdita Weeks stars as Scarlett, a brazen historian and archeologist who illegally leads a team deep beneath the streets of Paris in search of the legendary “philosopher’s stone.” The riddles and clues are silly and the relationships are thin (Ben Feldman plays Scarlett’s former lover, who reluctantly joins the expedition), but filming in Paris’ actual catacombs gives the movie an undeniably spooky aura and oppressive claustrophobia. Meanwhile, the found-footage format—a favorite of director John Erick Dowdle (The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Quarantine)—allows for a handful of arresting shots, including one in which a character’s headlamp-cam is dropped, capturing the team fleeing away down the tunnel, slowly drowning our point of view in debilitating darkness.
(5/28/2022)
