AS ABOVE SO BELOW (or an above-average concept let down by a below-average script)

When it comes to creepy settings you can’t get much better than the Paris catacombs; long miles of twisting tunnels containing the bones of Parisian’s who have shuffled off this mortal coil (are you planning to support your own city in this way?) Add to this the claustrophobic and chaotic style of the ‘found footage’ movie and you would think you have a winning formula …..…you would think. Let’s be clear, there is quite a lot of creepy suspense in this film as our intrepid explorers (or lemmings) are hounded by visions from their own past and have to squeeze through cramped bone-filled openings. Many of the surreal images (a telephone ringing, a piano in the depths of the city) create a good Twilight Zone atmosphere. The problems come from the framing story which involves, and I’m being dead serious here, the search for the philosopher’s stone (copyright J.K. Rowling). The horror/found footage genre, which involves a lot of breathless running eg. Blair Witch Project, does not sit very comfortably with explanations about alchemical symbols or the history of the underground. If you want to make such a film, even a found footage one, then make it as an urban Indiana Jones-type movie; if you want a Paris ghost story make that your focus. What I found especially frustrating is that I enjoyed both stories simultaneously and, had these been their own distinct movie, could have seen myself enjoying it a lot more. It’s a shame to see an inventive concept fail to live up to its potential like this. One wonders if a good script doctor had been involved would things have turned out a little differently? FINAL VERDICT 5/10