As most found-footage horror movies go, it's the realistic set-up that attempts to bring some weight to the story. But that attention to detail never seems to translate into improving the horror genre itself. As Above, So Below fits those criteria so beautifully it's scary!
Perdita Weeks plays Scarlett, an archeologist who goes on a quest to find the philosophers stone underneath the streets of Paris. The film is pretty boring for the first 15-20 minutes until the French dudes arrive. They are led by a charismatic graffitist named Papi, and he's played by François Civil.
While the acting is solid from likes of Weeks, Civil, Hodge, and Feldman (aka that dude who looks just like Scott Baio), the story and horror elements are not. While the film attempts to use each character's backstories to haunt them in the present, not all of them have compelling ones or even o backstory at all. Characters like Souxie and Zed are not as defined as the other characters (and shouldn't even exist to begin with) so why put them through stuff that won't resonate with the audience?
I will admit, the story works better dramatically than as a horror or thriller. It doesn't keep you on the edge of your seat; it just throws you a few "gotcha" moments that are effective, but any horror flick can do that. If the filmmakers wanted to throw several people down a dark cave and let them get killed one by one, there's no need to dress it up and give it a background to make the film look more serious. It just makes a film like this look even sillier.
