Considering John Erick Dowdle’s track record—The Poughkeepsie, which is still unfairly unreleased in theaters, on DVD or digitally, Quarantine and the unduly maligned Devil—As Above, So Below is disappointing. Written by Dowdle and his brother, Drew, the horror genre’s newest entry is another found-footage film, a stylistic gambit in which Dowdle has proven a master. Scarlett (Perdita Weeks), a cute archaeologist (I guess), continues her late father’s ill-fated life mission to find the fabled Sorcerer’s Stone, an alchemical creation rumored to change any material into gold and to grant eternal life. As a plot device, seeking the Sorcerer’s Stone might be about as dumb as they come. Fortunately, the quest leads Scarlett, her kind of boyfriend George (Ben Feldman, “Mad Men”) and some urban spelunkers led by Papillon (Gallic Eli Roth proxy Francois Civil) into the unexplored sections of Paris’ catacombs. The band descends farther and farther down, unable to return the way they came, until they eventually find themselves entering what seem to be the Gates of Hell. Dowdle knows how to structure found footage, but the hellish latter sequences, which should provide the film’s strongest moments, are too choppy and frantic to fully land their horrific blows. What could have been a modern take on Dante’s Inferno ends up another ghostly story, as George and Papillon are haunted by the spirits of departed acquaintances. Worse examples of found footage can be discovered hanging around on Netflix, but Dowdle can make films much more successfully horrific than this one.
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