As Above, So Below: Limited Edition (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Apr 22, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
John Erick DowdleRelease Date(s)
2014 (March 26, 2025)Studio(s)
Legendary Pictures/Brothers Dowdle/Universal Pictures (Via Vision Entertainment)- Film/Program Grade: B
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
[Editor’s Note: This is a Region-Free Australian Blu-ray import.]
Like most modern found footage horror films, As Above, So Below owes a debt to The Blair Witch Project (although even that film owes a debt to the real godfather of the genre, Cannibal Holocaust). Given the fact that it’s set in the Catacombes de Paris, deep underground beneath the streets of Paris, it would be fair to assume that it’s following in the footsteps of The Tunnel and that film’s own antecedent, Gary A. Sherman’s Death Line (aka Raw Meat). Well, you know what happens when you make an assumption, don’t you? The real joy in watching As Above, So Below is trying to figure out what directions that the story is going to take, and they’re not necessarily the expected ones, either (although they should be, since they’re pretty clearly spelled out right from the opening pre-credit sequence). Instead of discovering cannibalistic underground monsters of one sort or another, the protagonists end up finding exactly what they were looking for—which turns out to be far more horrifying than they could have possibly imagined.
Yet aside from the foreknowledge that As Above, So Below is indeed a found footage horror movie, nothing in the first act of the film provides any indication whatsoever that the story is actually heading in that direction. Instead, it plays out much like point-and-click adventure games such as the Broken Sword and Secret Files series. Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) is a scholar who has taken up her father’s quest to locate a legendary alchemical artifact. She uncovers clues that lead her to the catacombs beneath Paris, and so she takes her intrepid documentary cameraperson Benji (Edwin Hodge) on a journey in search for it, while also dragging along her reluctant ex-boyfriend George (Ben Feldman), who happens to be an expert in ancient languages like Aramaic. Lacking the spelunking skills that they need, they enlist the help of native Parisians Papillon (François Civil), Souxie (Marion Lambert), and Zed (Ali Marhyar). As they proceed deeper underground in search of more clues about Scarlett’s goal, they discover clues from their own past lives that make them understand just how deep that alchemical secrets can take them.
To say more would be to say too much. There’s a genuine air of mystery in As Above, So Below, which is aided greatly by the way that the first act sets up the basic situation—it’s a rare example of an exposition dump that’s actually pretty interesting. It doesn’t hurt that the characters (and the actors who play them) are all quite likable, which makes it easier to swallow their endless discussions regarding an archaeological quest that threatens to sail into the mystic. None of that is accidental, either. Writer/director John Erick Dowdle and co-writer/producer Drew Dowdle originally envisioned making an Indiana Jones adventure featuring a female hero, so it’s not surprising that their setup resembles a point-and-click adventure. Games like these have long featured female protagonists and storylines that include esoterica like the Illuminati and the Knights Templar. The puzzles that Scarlett and George solve also bear more than a passing resemblance to the warped logic of adventure games.
Yet As Above, So Below ended up taking on a completely different shape once the Dowdle brothers were granted permission to shoot in the Paris Catacombs. That brought another influence to bear on the film, at least indirectly: Werner Herzog. Herzog once talked about the “voodoo of location,” the idea that shooting things in actual locations was capable of channeling something that couldn’t be achieved with the artificiality of a film set. The Paris Catacombs ended up channeling a unique atmosphere into As Above, So Below that supported taking the story into depths that it might not have explored otherwise. Once the characters reach an opening marked with the warning “Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here”, there’s no turning back. Or is there? Like all the best adventure games, while most paths lead to certain death, there’s usually one correct route in order to live to see the dawn. As Above, So Below is filled with Dante Alighieri (and Lucio Fulci) inspired visions of darkness, but ultimately, the film owes as much to John Milton as it does to anything else:
“Long is the way
And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light...
If thence he scape into whatever world,
Or unknown Region, what remains him less
Then unknown dangers and as hard escape.”
Cinematographer Léo Hinstin captured most of the above-ground footage in As Above, So Below digitally at 3.5K resolution (in Redcode RAW format) using Red Epic cameras, while the supposed Go-Pro “helmet cam” footage was captured in 1080p (in XDCAM HD format) using Sony PXW-X200 cameras. Post-production work was completed as a 2K digital intermediate, framed at 1.85:1 for its theatrical release. The Red Epic footage is all sharp, crisp, and detailed, while the Sony footage is softer and less detailed, with some inevitable noise given the low light shooting conditions underground. The contrast range is also better above ground than it is in the catacombs, with deeper black levels that support additional shadow detail, while the Sony footage looks murkier. Yet all of that is to be expected. That’s actually a good way to describe this 1080p master as a whole: it all looks exactly like it should. It’s always challenging to judge the picture quality on found footage films, at least in absolute terms. As long as the mixed media material is reproduced accurately, then all’s well even if it isn’t as pretty as films shot under other circumstances. In the case of As Above, So Below, all’s well.
Audio is offered in English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and 2.0 LPCM, with optional English SDH subtitles. It’s a suitably atmospheric mix, with an abundance of ambient effects all throughout the soundstage while inside the Catacombs. There’s also some deep bass rumble during the scenes of destruction during the prologue and the crumbling walls/ceilings during the rest of the film. Yet even above ground, the sounds of the clanging bells in the bell tower are equally impressive. When listening on a full Dolby Atmos system with Dolby Surround engaged, it all upmixes beautifully—it’s almost uncanny how well that their algorithms seem to choose the perfect sound effects to redirect to the ceiling speakers. Upmixing tends to be garbage in, garbage out, so that’s a good indication of just how good that this 7.1 mix really is.
Via Vision Entertainment’s Limited Edition Blu-ray release of As Above, So Below comes with six different art cards and a hard slipcase featuring a 3D lenticular version of the theatrical poster artwork. (It’s limited to 2000 units, so act quickly if you’re interested.) The following extras are included, all of them in HD:
- Audio Commentary by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
- To Hell and Back (26:24)
- Beyond the Catacombs (21:39)
- Shooting Underground (19:48)
- Inside As Above, So Below (3:39)
- Theatrical Trailer (2:23)
The new commentary track is with author, film critic, and self-described recovering academic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, whose actual academic credentials includes the 2014 book Found Footage Horror Films: Fear and the Appearance of Reality. So, she’s a natural to talk about As Above, So Below. She also covers the various influences in the film as well as some practical stories about exactly how it came about—it really was a fortuitous confluence of circumstances. She also provides some historical detail about the Paris Catacombs, sorting out the facts from the legends, and relates the way that they influenced the Dowdles in their conception of the film. Recovering academic or not, Heller-Nicholas always brings the receipts by identifying all of the sources that she uses, including the ones from her own book, to it’s an informative, well-documented commentary track.
To Hell and Back is a new visual essay featuring Dread Central editor-in-chief Mary Beth McAndrews, who feels that As Above, So Below deserves its place in the pantheon of classic found footage horror films. It’s as much a first-person adventure as it is a horror film, and the larger budget gave the Dowdles the opportunity to do more with the concept than ultra-low budget films like Paranormal Activity—they were able to actually show supernatural occurrences, not just disguise them with a shaky camera. To Hell and Back is divided into five sections, the titles of which serve as spoilers, so we won’t share them here. Suffice it to say that she traces the style, themes, and practical narrative elements of As Above, So Below, including the unusual way that it resolves. Like the commentary track it’s an insightful look at the film (well, there’s a misspelling in the closing credits, but still).
Beyond the Catacombs is a new interview with Ben Feldman, who says that he’s never been much of a horror film fan despite the fact that he’s been in several of them (including a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him appearance in Cloverfield). But he loved being able to work in Paris—although simple things like having to go to the bathroom proved challenging while shooting underground (they had to return to the surface). They also couldn’t touch anything unless it had been created for the film. Feldman offers plenty of praise for the rest of the cast and crew, especially cinematographer Léo Hinstin. While Feldman says that he’s had plenty of easier gigs than this, he’s still proud of the work that they did.
Shooting Underground is a new interview with Hinstin, who says that he’s not a found footage fan per se, but he liked the challenge of creating a subjective perspective for As Above, So Below. While John Erick Dowdle laid out the general plan for every scene, he gave Hinstin plenty of creative freedom in order to film whatever he felt was most interesting. They shot long takes to maintain continuity, which also gave him more freedom to follow the flow as he wished. They quickly realized that he was essentially playing Benji, so he dressed in costume for many of the takes while Edwin Hodge stood next to him and delivered the lines (it’s still Hodges hands visible in the frame, of course). Hinstin also details some of logistics of shooting in the Paris Catacombs.
Inside As Above, So Below is a brief bit of archival EP fluff featuring interviews with John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle, Ben Feldman, Perdita Weeks, and Catacombs expert Gilles Thomas. It’s the only extra here that was also included on Shout! Factory’s 2024 Blu-ray, which otherwise offered a completely different slate including two separate interviews with the Dowdles: Abandon All Hope: Directing As Above, So Below and What Lies Beneath: Producing As Above, So Below.
While I don’t have that disc for comparison purposes, this does appear to be the same basic master, so the video and audio quality should be similar between the two releases—although Via Vision has the clear edge in terms of packaging! Yet while Via Vision’s set doesn’t have any direct participation from the Dowdles, it still has the edge on their extras as well, both in terms of quantity and quality (the Alexandra Heller-Nicholas commentary and the Mary Beth McAndrews visual essay are both quite good). If you already own the Shout! Factory version, you’ll have to decide for yourself if that’s enough to warrant a double dip. But if you don’t (or if you only own Universal’s original 2014 Blu-ray), then this superior Via Vision package is well worth tracking down.
-Stephen Bjork
(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).