Mark Kermode 

As Above, So Below review – an average shocker, with some big jumps

It's derivative and formulaic but John Erick Dowdle's hellbound horror definitely has the "boo!" factor, writes Mark Kermode
  
  

as above so below review
Panic stations: Perdita Weeks in the subterranean horror As Above, So Below. Photograph: AP Photograph: AP

Claustrophobes will find their panic buttons pushed by the increasingly confined spaces of this passable found-footage chiller set in the catacombs beneath the streets of Paris. Director and co-writer John Erick Dowdle (who directed the [REC] remake Quarantine and the hell-in-a-lift thriller Devil) has creepy fun with the crawl spaces through which our motley crew must venture in search of an alchemical stone buried at the gates of hell. Not a patch on Neil Marshall's The Descent (to which it owes a weighty debt), this nuts-and-bolts shocker nevertheless has a few scares up its sleeve, thanks in no small part to a noisy soundtrack that cranks up the "boo!" factor, with unavoidably jumpy results.

 

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