I love horror movies, but I don’t usually get scared by horror movies anymore. When you start watching scary movies at the ripe old age of 6, then after two decades of them you get a little desensitized and hard to impress. So, when I find a movie that legitimately scares me, it often goes right to the top of my list, a designation that few recent horror films have earned over the last five years. The biggest exception to this, however, is 2014 horror film As Above, So Below. This movie blends two of my favorite things in movies: psychological horror and found footage cinematography, which is a really unique blend. Often, found footage is utilized for visual scares, and while AASB has some terrific camera tricks and frights, it also uses the technique to hammer home the uncertainty and panic that it does so well.
AASB follows a group of urban explorers as they enter the French Catacombs. The maze quickly overtakes them, and they’re left to discover horrifying secrets about the catacombs and themselves. Several scenes play up the claustrophobia of crawling through tight, bone-strewn spaces, and the general age and atmosphere of the setting–which is made even better by the fact they were able to film in the real catacombs–unsettles viewers almost immediately. However, the real fear factor comes in when the maze begins to play tricks on the characters. Personal demons are revealed and antagonize our protagonists psychologically, and camera tricks combine with unexpected visuals to create terrifying situations in which the hopelessness is palpable. I often say that AASB is a better Silent Hill movie than either of the actual Silent Hill movies, and this is absolutely true. AASB creates personalized psychological horror that stimulate the dark side of audiences’ imaginations and confront us with the possibilities of what we ourselves would find in the catacombs. This kind of horror is symbolic of an interesting psychoanalytic theme: fear of ourselves. Based heavily in Jungian psychological thought, this theme suggests that there are pieces of ourselves that we suppress because they scare us; we refuse to accept the darker parts of our personalities and thus hide them under different personas until some crisis reveals these fears in full and allows us to confront and resolve them. This school of thought guides AASB’s horror and asks terrific questions about what is truly scary for human beings. There is also a terrific theory about each level of the catacombs representing a level of hell if you’re into pseudo-religious theory in movies. Either way, AASB does psychological horror better than any movie I’ve ever seen, and I firmly suggest it as the best horror film that has come out in the last 5 years.
Tonight is a double feature! We’re watching 10 Cloverfield Ln and French film Martyrs. Be on the lookout for some bonus articles today too! Happy Hallows Eve!
