MovieChat Forums > As Above, So Below (2014) Discussion > Let's make a list of s**t wrong with thi...

Let's make a list of s**t wrong with this movie. Add your own.

posted 9 years ago by jpmv88
34 replies | jump to latest

- Translate from the ancient Aramaic, BAM!, it rhymes in English

- There's a satanic cult singing creepy songs in a secret tunnel of the Catacombs. "Oh that's right... I forgot to tell you there's always a bunch of weird people down here. Let's not focus on them or how they got here with apparently no equipment."

- Camera man clearly zooms in on satanic chick when she's leaving the bar. Zooms in on her face again when they reach the evil tunnel of the Catacombs. "Hmmm... Why should I mention this creepy coincidence to the rest of the group when I can just... not do it?"

- "La Taupe/The Mole" has been living underground for over two years. Let's not focus on how the hell is he still alive and instead let us follow him so he can show us the way out although he himself apparently never left.

- Siouxie is killed by "La Taupe". Let's not acknowledge it for the rest of the movie or worry about the legal consequences of her death. "So... who killed Susan?" "Well, officer, it was this friend of ours that has been living in the Catacombs for the last two years!" "Okaaaay..... And who killed your other friends?" "Oh, officer... That was just a bunch of zombies and demons that live down there!"

- Translate from the ancient Aramaic, BAM!, it rhymes in English

- There's an old telephone ringing in the Catacombs, from which a dead relative talks to you by name. There's also a piano in the Catacombs just like that one from my childhood and I remember quite fondly that... Wait! THIS IS THE PIANO FROM MY CHILDHOOD! But hey! Let none of us react like a normal human being and instead of crying in despair and shivering with terror and having faint spells and praying to God for forgiveness and go insane and claustrophobic and telling yourself this is just a prank! this has to be a prank! come on, you guys, very funny! ahah! you can stop now! PLEASE STOP OR I'LL *beep* MURDER YOU ALL!!!! No.... instead of making things interesting let me just... let me just continue trying to find the way out. I could use a drink right now!"

- The punishment for illegally entering Iran is a harsh sentence in prison, not being stoned to death.

- Translate from the ancient Aramaic, BAM!, it rhymes in English!!!!!

- First, the philosophical stone she took from the wall heals Siouxie's arm. But later turns out that wasn't the philosophical stone and the philosophical stone is yourself but ONLY when you restore the stolen gem. SO HOW THE *beep* DID SHE CURE SIOUXIE'S ARM IF THAT WASN'T THE RIGHT STONE??!?

- We go further down and down and down and down the catacombs, where we run and run and run and run away from dead people. Oxygen? Lol... what's that?

[–] DorsiaRes 9 years ago

I guess you don't watch too many horror movies. Not everything is logical and definitely not how we would react in the real world. Since when do you see a person killed in a horror movie and everybody wonder about the legal ramifications?! I just assumed La Taupe had been stuck there and possessed, which kept him "alive" in the same state. It probably wasn't even really HIM, just like when we see Scarlett's dad, the burning car, etc.

[–] the_10th 9 years ago

Well to be fair, I don't really care about most of the points op made. They were mostly trivial. My issues with it are a little different. The concept was nice, & I liked the overall plot. But the script/dialogue was pretty bad. And Scarlett's 'acting'. She did a lot of 'acting'. Everyone else felt pretty natural.
The near 'Batman & Robinesque' way of figuring out the riddles. More Scarlet acting. That was funny.
And the piano. When he said he & his brother used to play... I thought, I bet 1 key was off on his piano & the same one is off on this. Yup. It's set up so logically obvious.
Inept & stubborn Benji. Lots of stating the obvious from characters, too.

There were some good moments though. And I was almost surprised by the ending. I had one concocted as they were leaving that I would have liked to see; When the first one crawls out of the manhole cover.....they go flying into the sky pulling the others along with & it's actually a neverending pit in hell.
That woulda been cool. ha.

[–] leviosa_cho 9 years ago

One part particularly turned me off was Scarlett giving the guy a kiss that "magically" healed him. I know why he got better (in this movie theory) but still can't get past the cliche kiss.

[–] raz-campbell 7 years ago

The Atheist Experience did a good bit about this.A caller was asking about the difference between 'reasonable', 'rational' and 'logical'. In describing 'rational', Matt Dillahunty used the example of a science fiction show. This is my attempt to paraphrase his summation:

You might take for granted that all the stuff works according to the rules that they lay out on (for example) Star Trek. And it's all rational. Until/ unless they break those rules with (for example) a transporter accident (I believe he was referencing the one in TNG that resulted in the creation of a 2nd Will Riker, who came to call himself Tom Riker, using his middle name rather than his given name). Once they break their own rules this way, it's no longer rational.

So, yeah... This movie is rational up to a point. But it's as though the film makers went to the M. Night Shamylan school of Filmcraft, and felt that they needed to add in a twist, or even more than 1 twist. Unfortunately -and as other posters have demonstrated- in doing so, they break their own rules for what makes sense and thus the film's plot is no longer rational.

Peace

Raz

[–] LollygagFlapjack 9 years ago

Nice thread, OP. 😄

[–] MrZoolook 9 years ago

There isn't enough space on the internet for a complete list, so I'll summarise.

For me, the biggest thing wrong with this film, is that it exists.

[–] khamier 9 years ago

Not to mention the most messed up part of this whole movie....

Translate from the ancient Aramaic, BAM!, it rhymes in English!!!!!

[–] Skrelp690 9 years ago

You would be great in CinemaSins.

Also...

- Oxygen...and Temperature! I was asking how they are not sweating or complaining about the heat if they are going more below.

[–] itsmytardis 8 years ago

Um, because the deeper you get into the earth the colder it gets. Duh? You don't see a lot of spelunkers pouring sweat. It was probably 50* at least. As for O2, how do you think people in caves breathe? Gills? lol. Use your brain, it's common sense. It's not like the underground caves are regular temperature and a vacuum with no air. LOL.

[–] HentaiGuy42 8 years ago

You are wrong, the deeper you go the HOTTER it gets (on average the temperature goes up 35°C per kilometer you go down, though it does vary based on how geologically active the area is, it'd get a lot hotter a lot faster if you were in Yellowstone, for example). The cooling effect you get is only in the upper layers due to how slowly heat propagates through the earth (which is why you can determine the average annual air temperature by sticking a thermometer is essentially any body of ground water at any time of year).

Also, the problem with O2 isn't that you would run out, it's that the deeper you go the higher the air pressure is. At a certain air pressure, oxygen becomes toxic. This typically is more of a danger to divers as water pressure is much higher than air pressure, and you'd have to go somewhere around 5 km deep before things started getting really nasty...and by that point you'd already be cooking unless you took precautions.

Still, they were obviously in some weird netherworld that didn't obey normal physics, so it's all moot.

[–] alexander-978-692186 9 years ago

Weird people are actually down there all the time. Surf the net and you will see parties, fondu, raves, concerts and yes, sometimes "vampires" doing their.... Whatever it is you do when you dress like a vampire in real life.

Oxygen, temperature. - there is a constant flow of oxygen down there from manholes that circulate to the street. Let's remember they shot this is the real actual catacombs, not a set, and the crew didn't die. Temperature, it is a constant 15 degrees Celsius like most caves. Not being subjected to temperamental weather like the surface it remains pretty much the same right the way through the year.

The Aramaic rhymed In English... Total *beep* *beep*

[–] pizzicatoiv 9 years ago

- this is 'found footage' but the camera angles don't match up anywhere near the angle of the actor from cut to cut. they seemingly have cameras only on their heads, and the one handheld. but so many angles are not from any of these.
- they lose at least three cameras in the deaths. I know they definitely didn't recover the one from the burning car death. so how was this footage supposed to be compiled after the fact? they definitely used angles from all these characters.
- who is editing the camera footage afterward? the documentary guy died.

[–] chicago85 9 years ago

At the end, they open a manhole cover and are in an open space in busy Paris in the evening. Did anyone ever say, "Hey where does this manhole go to?"

I don't know everything. Neither does anyone else

[–] jacowium 8 years ago

Haha! So glad I'm not the only one who had the exact same thoughts as I watched that final scene. I respect the fact that horror movies are not bound to realism the same way most dramas would be, but that doesn't mean "anything goes". The manhole-resolution is nothing but a poor plot device due to lazy writing.

And nobody around in a Parisian square either to see young people crawling out of there and get curious...? How convenient! There are far better horror movies around with much more satisfactory outcomes - too many to mention.

Please click on 'reply' at the post you're responding to. Thanks.

[–] kascha-klaussen 9 years ago

We're making assumptions that anyone is actually going to be compiling this footage after the ordeal they just went through.

But let's say they will. There's got to be at least one other person who can edit film for this documentary. In or of the Earth. At the globe. Hmmm?

[–] dexshirts 9 years ago

"Found footage" is loosely applied to people who wanna make a movie from the perspective that we're there with the cast. It's not necessarily trying to convince you this is what would have been found...

The POV/Hand-Held filming technique is just something that filmmakers have popularised recently. I'm personally not a fan. I hate it. However, identifying who would have edited it, cameras were lost etc is a bit pointless really because it's a movie, and it's not trying to pass it off as a true story and this is what we found.

Older found footage movies like The Blair Witch and Cannibal Holocaust were filmed to genuinely lead the audience into thinking the filmmakers perished while recording.

I mean, if you wanna whinge, my gripe is always how come a tiny pinhole camera is always super clear, super well lit and apparently has an incredibly sensitive yet gain-controlled mic that picks up the wearer and supporting cast with perfect levels.

But then, I'm not sitting watching thinking about that. I'm enjoying a movie that is fiction about a group of people in a fictional scenario called a movie.

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[–] teck76 9 years ago

"Found footage" is all I need. I stopped watching when I realized it was going to be the entire movie.

[–] saturnjwl 9 years ago

-I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that 'Phd in Symbology' is not a real thing.

-It seems unlikely that Nicolas Flamel used the same unit of measurement that the US uses today.

-Aramaic wouldn't rhyme in English, obviously.

-During the first journey through the 'hell' part of the catacombs, witches/monsters/zombies are super scary and dangerous. Second time? no worries, just walk right past them.

-footage which would obviously be lost forever is included in this 'found footage' movie.

Overall I thought this was a really good and somewhat scary film and I loved its themes and setting. I really think that even a modicum of seriousness applied to the script would have gone a long way towards making this a significantly better film. But, in the end, I suppose it had its own aesthetic. I can't think of another sort of 'ghost story' type of film with such a visceral type of 'haunting'. The piano, phone, burning car, witches, zombies, etc, are all very real, unlikely most scary movies which will apply more of an 'apparition' type of aesthetic. So, it could be that these silly aspects of the film (e.g. the inexplicably rhyming translation) were left in intentionally as an aspect of the filmmakers' artistic vision.

[–] Laserseightoclockdayone 9 years ago

-I'm pretty sure that everyone knows that 'Phd in Symbology' is not a real thing.

I was waiting for Willem Dafoe to yell "SSSSSSYMBOLISSSM" in his face after that.

That rhyming thing was beyond hilarious.

Inexplicably I also enjoyed this film overall. Thinking if they would have pushed it harder with a larger budget it would definitely be one of those hidden gems for the archives.

[–] 9 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Theshornwonder 8 years ago

symbology is a fictitious field of study. This is hardly the first film to mention it.

Second, the argument that "they assume they'd be using the same units of measurement 500 years ago that they use now." Well first, they use the metric system in France now, and second, she gets the measurement from an old alchemical chart. France did, indeed use "feet" as a unit of measure 500 years ago and that unit of measure was unchanged from basically the old Roman units the French adopted 1,000 years ago. That unit is also very similar to the "feet' unit used today in America and that used by Britain under the Imperial System. So, yeah, it does make sense.

[–] mmserrano4 8 years ago

His unit of measurement is equal to like 1.0000007 of a normal foot. So it's basically the same actually.

Communism was just a Red herring!