Director: John Erick Dowdle
Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman
My Rating: Liked It
Budget: $5 Million
Box Office: $40.1 Million
As Above/So Below is a bright new example of why critics scores (rottentomatoes, metacritic) don't really mean anything. I know this better than anyone, yet I was still put off by the 33% RT and the 37 on metacritic. This movie is way better than that. If you're a horror fan, this film will appease your thirst for good horror!
The story follows Scarlett who is attempting to uncover the location of the Philosopher's Stone, a stone that brings everlasting life. Scarlett and her friends figure out that it's somewhere in the caves of the catacombs under Paris. They get more than they bargained for.
The film relies a lot on details from Dante's Inferno, making it the smartest horror movie I've seen in a long while. And it does offer up a couple of scares near the end, mostly taking cues from the brilliant cave dwelling horror The Descent. I found the last half hour very stylish presentation wise and the overall story very original. I was completely invested in As Above/So Below for the whole duration. Some people complained that it didn't make sense, but honestly I thought it made perfect sense.
There were a few very minute details that were funny to me. First, Benji was living in Paris and had never heard of the catacombs before? I've never been outside of America and even I know what the catacombs are. And then on a few occasions the group had to swim under water; which means that big ol' camera that Benji was lugging around wouldn't have survived. But I'm okay with that, the movie had to keep going!
As Above/So Below is the best horror film to come out of 2014 so far. The competition is: Paranormal Activity The Marked Ones, The Quiet Ones, Devil's Due, and Deliver Us From Evil. I've seen the first two and didn't care for them much, and I've heard the last two were crap. I definitely will check those two out for myself, but for right now, As Above/So Below wears the crown for best horror film of 2014 thus far.