10 Most Pointless Films Since 2000
9. As Above So Below
Swipe an idea or two from Catacombs (2007), make the heroine a Lara Croft-style adventurer and you’ve got As Above So Below, the latest ‘found footage’ movie from the director of The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007) and Quarantine (2008).
We know Scarlett Marlowe (Perdita Weeks) is a globetrotting adventurer because we first meet her beneath the streets of Turkey, where she’s raiding a tomb in pursuit of something or other. She looks like a model, has a black belt in Karate and speaks with a plummy English accent, so any resemblance to Lara Croft is purely intentional.
Arriving at an entrance inscribed with the words “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here”, she decides to enter (wouldn’t you?) and immediately starts seeing Hooded Figures, Creepy Kids and, for some reason, a burning VW Polo that suddenly vanishes. It’s here that the film accomplishes what every ‘found footage’ movie manages to achieve in its third act – it goes off the rails and becomes a laugh riot.
Critics savaged this hand-me-down horror, with several making puns on the title – “As Forewarned, So Avoid” and “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow” are our favourites. Strangely, nobody went for the most obvious – “As Before, So Again.”