About a Film: As Above, So Below (2014)

I want the truth

(Scarlett Marlowe)

Director: John Erick Dowdle

Screen writer: John Erick Dowdle and Drew Dowdle

Stars: Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge

Origin: USA

Run time: 93 minutes

Sinopsis: An arkeolog who continue her father's quest of philosopher stone

Found footage movie is real hit these days and the people there seemed never feel bored to make a movie with this kind of premise and this movie is being of it. At first, I decided to watch this movie because it's sci-fi thriller (I like to watch this genre recently) but I felt a bit bothered when I found that this a found footage movie. It's kind of enough for me to watch this type of movie but, I gave it a try, Well, this movie is....a bit promising because it's bit different than the other found footage movies which always (not always) about the ghost and its appearance. This one talks about alchemist and I found it pretty cool. The story begins with an arkeolog named Scarlett hunts 'Rose Key' which turns out to be the key of his father's quest of philosopher stone.

I'm not a fan of alchemist, though it's pretty amazing for this movie to employ the idea of alchemist. There are some tricks that amazes me and one of them is when Scarlett tries to uncover some writing based using cleaning products. The fire sparkles and that's just wow. It's rare for me to see this kind of scene in the movie and the director can present the sophisticated scene in a good way. Well, when I saw this scene, actually I thought that this movie is a bit better than I think. Well, that's until I saw this figure.

A pale-faced woman? No. No way. This won't be just a science thriller. A woman who looks like a ghost definitely will change how the movie will move forward (imo). I mean, a mysterious figure  with a pale face will always give you a notion about a horror atmosphere, which usually related with ghost or whatsoever. For me, this figure can be a tricky character for this kind of movie, whether this movie will stay in the science-fiction or just fall into horror category. Then, it just turn out that, yes, the science fiction is slowly mixed with the horror and eerie atmosphere. Fortunately, it's still watchable and for the record, this movie is not recommended for the ones who is claustrophobia because, yes, as Scarlett and her group dig more into the philosopher stone's tale, they need to come below the city of Paris to hunt the stone. There are some times that they need to crawl over human bones and walk into a narrow tunnel and also swi, etc. Well, this movie just present every worse moments for claustrophobia people. Other than, there are also the appearance of 'creatures' that haunt them into finding the real philosopher stone. It's pretty cliche. In sum, saw a promising premise but, it's just an okay for me.

(it's amazing that it's in Paris. Kinda remind me of The Da Vinci Code)

Credits:

IGN @ youtube