As Above, So Below

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: John Erick Dowdle/Starring: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge and Francois Civil

John Erick Dowdle, Director of Devil, revisits the realm of the supernatural with As Above, So Below; a technically accomplished, better than average film with imaginative sets and camera work. Though horror is the most durable of all movie genres, it consistently leaves one with low expectations. And even though the film's trailer promised more than your garden variety horror film in terms of offbeat story and locations, it also featured many elements that left me sighing.

Perdita Weeks plays Scarlet Marlowe, Doctor of Archaeology and Symbiology though her youth leaves one wondering how she had time to collect multiple Ph.Ds'. But no matter, I wouldn't let my enjoyment of the movie become slavishly shackled to the demands of realism.

We first see her being interviewed for a documentary. The documentarian, Benji (Edwin Hodge), follows her around during the film to give us another shaky, hand-held, first-person perspective of the action--a stylistic tic that's all the rage in horror these days. Early in the film, she discusses her quest to find the mythical Philosopher's Stone; an object sought by alchemists for centuries. The Stone is thought to be key in transmuting base metals to gold and bestowing eternal life on those who possess it.

We then see Scarlet disguised in an Arab woman's headdress as she makes her way by bus to a rural Iranian village. A frantic Iranian man leads her to a hole in the wall of his home, which she enters--in spite of his protestations--to a another tunnel which brings her face to face with ancient writings. She breaks through a wall to find a black statue of a bull, whose flanks are covered with more ancient writings, which she copies feverishly. Like Indiana Jones, Dr. Marlowe--which noone ever addresses her as in the film in spite of her impressive academic credentials--seems to have little professional regard for the integrity of archaeological sites, as one will see often during the film.

After her escape from Iran, we see her again in Paris as she seeks out a former boyfriend named George (Ben Feldman), who has the ability to translate the Aramaic writings found in the Iranian cave. She explains, as Benji films, that Ben likes to break into places of archaeological interest to restore damaged or non-working mechanical objects. When she first approaches him, George is busy restoring a centuries-old chime in a church tower. That both Scarlet and George think nothing of breaking the law to achieve their respective goals again says very little about their professional ethics.

George shows little patience for Scarlet's quest but assists her in translating the Aramaic writings which reveal the location of the Philospher's Stone that supposedly rests under the Parisian catacombs. After some Da Vinci Code/Indiana Jones-like clue decipherings, the two search for a young frenchman named Papillon (No, I'm not making his name up and no, he doesn't resemble Steve McQueen); played by Francois Civil, whose singular skill in finding the hidden passages of the catacombs makes him a logical choice to join Scarlet and George in their descent deep beneath Paris.

In spite of some implausibilities, the plot's potential is clearly laid out.

To sustain the first-person camera POV, Scarlet provides each member of the expedition mini-cameras to attach to their helmets. This frees Benji from being the lone perspective--a handy solution to problems filming in dark spaces with limited lighting. This is also a clever ploy to create more tension and drama.

The descent into the catacombs is not for the claustrophobic. A scene of Benji squeezing through a hole will make even the most unclaustrophobic squirm. I'm not sure how Dowdle filmed the scenes in the tunnels and catacombs, because they look authentic and really great--a nice technical achievement for which his cinematographer Leo Hinstin can share credit.

As the group descends deeper into the catacombs, Scarlet and George decipher more clues. And while the group makes their way into the darkness, eery, creepy sounds begin to unnerve them. A horror film's use of sound can be as effective as visuals in creating dread and terror, which Dowdle employs with consummate skill.

Along the way, encounters with nightmarish wraiths, apparitions and ghouls occur with some frequency.

Everything proceeds entertainingly. I think Dowdle could have exploited the setting for more scares. And things that menace in the dark never really threaten, which saps the film of chill potential. We see a hooded something wandering around down below but we have not a clue what it is and why it mostly ignores the group, which is disappointing.

Scarlet translates an inscription above a cave opening as "Abandon all hope ye who enter here,"-- which is of course what marks the entrance to Hell in Dante's Inferno. It's a fun touch but I hoped I might see something as deliciously nether-worldish as what gushes forth from Dante's epic poem. Creepy things do abound but nothing to suggest that of the Dark Lord.

The film suggests a figurative Hell where guilt forges manacles one cannot extricate oneself from in life. The characters address their psychological troubles near the end and speedily dispost of them in an unsatisfying manner. Dowdle's script never established any of the character's psychic baggage early on, so it's a little strange for it to arise out of nowhere.

I mostly enjoyed the movie until the screenplay called for Scarlet to do something I found unforgivably preposterous. Luckily said nonsense occurs late in the film. In the end, I hoped for a darker, O. Henry-like twist but the film stubborly settles for something more banal.

As Above, So Below didn't provide me an opportunity for shredding and evisceration. It was too ambitious to deride but not enough to praise equivocally. If the quality of the writing matched the production and sound design, Dowdle's film would have been something memorable but he should be commended for his originality and for loftier ambitions seldom seen in the horror genre.

As horror films tend to steal shamelessly from one another, As Above, So Below has the decency to make its own statement on its own terms. Unfortunately, the film will fade from theaters and skulk around on DVD, which will greatly diminish its visual strengths. Dowdle is a talented director; one who thinks outside the holding cell of genre cliches. I hope the film industry doesn't beat that out of him.