As Above, So Below 2014 ***

If the found-footage genre has been done to death since The Blair Witch Project, As Above, So Below shows there’s some life in it if there’s a bit of imagination required. Coming off Quarantine and Devil, John Erik Dowdle has got the required horror chops for this neat low-budget chiller in which a group of adventure hunters get lost in the catacombs beneath Paris. Using real locations is a big plus here, as well as making the nature of the threat hard to fathom. Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) and her band are in search of the Philosopher’s Stone, but instead find themselves victims of a malignant force using their backstories to torture them. The usual grappling, gore and yelling is offset by a clever idea in which the explorers have the ground shifted away beneath them, leading to a wonderful visual in the final scene. There’s so many bad examples of found-footage; As Above, So Below is one of the few good ones.