Hell might be sitting through another found-footage film

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This article was published 29/08/2014 (4415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” is the inscription uncovered by a gang of 20-something treasure hunters in the catacomb-hopping horror flick As Above, So Below. But the warning could easily apply to viewers of this rather hopeless mash-up of The Descent and (Rec), not to mention other found-footage movies.

Hardly credible, even for a film claiming that the gates of hell lie a few hundred feet below Paris (if anywhere, they can be found in an overcrowded Metro car with no air conditioning), this low-budget effort from director John Erick Dowdle and writer-producer-brother Drew Dowdle provides a few late scares after plenty of eye-rolling setup, with said scares due more to the sound design than the action itself.

First seen wearing a headscarf as she explores an off-limits cavern in Iran, gorgeous tomb raider Scarlett (Perdita Weeks) claims to have a black belt in capoeira and a doctorate from University College London. While she never uses her fighting skills and fails to cite Dante when coming across the above-mentioned quote (so much for the PhD), she’s still brazen enough to continue her dead father’s lifelong quest to discover the legendary, eternal-life-giving Philosopher’s Stone.

Teaming up with an expat clockmaker (Ben Feldman, a.k.a. Ginsberg on Mad Men) who also speaks fluent Aramaic, and a guy named Benji (Edwin Hodge, The Purge) who’s been brought on as the requisite cameraman-who-keeps-shooting-at-all-costs, Scarlett uncovers clues that lead her to the Paris catacombs, which famously house the bones of six million dead, buried there up through the late 19th century. The Americans contract the services of three spelunking Frenchies (Francois Civil, Marion Lambert, Ali Marhyar) and together they head underground, the treasure hunt taking them further and further down as things inevitably get out of hand.

Cue up lots of stinging sound effects, eerie chanting, rats, a freaky dude named “the Mole” (Cosme Castro) who pops up now and then (and who, for no reason, everyone addresses in English), and a slew of lame paranormal gags whereby each character is forced to face their own inner demons. But the characters are all so brazenly one-dimensional, and Scarlett so ridiculous (she dresses for the expedition like she’s headed to the mall), that As Above never passes the credibility test from the get-go, only partially salvaged by a few chilling moments that pop up in the final reel.

No strangers to the found-footage game, the Brothers Dowdle (as they call their production shingle) already handled the lesser U.S. remake of (Rec). This one feels like an oddly serious take on the tongue-in-cheek Venice cave sequence from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. It doesn’t help that this film is loaded with purposely shaky camerawork, making it hard to see what’s what and who’s who.

At best, the filmmakers capitalize on their Paris locations, staging a few scenes in the actual catacombs, others in a trendy nightclub and empty Right Bank cathedral. Along with a well-chosen closing song from French DJs Scratch Massive, and one or two genuine scares, that’s about the best this excursion has to offer.

Come for the poster, stay for the end credits.

— The Associated Press