freeist

I don't remember if there were any jump scares in "Stephanie," because it had me always ready to jump, and that might be the best thing I could say about a horror movie these days.

This is the sort of horror movie that could only be made with excellence today. It's low budget, but looks great. It takes place primarily in one house, but doesn't become dull. Instead of special effects, It depends on atmosphere and its actors' performances. In the few places where there are special effects, they don't invite doubt.

I commend the actors, especially child actor Shree Crooks, who hits it out of the park. Was it possible before now to get child-actor performance this strong in a low budget horror movie? Crooks is in every scene and never slips.

My only caveat: the first part might not appeal to some viewers, but if they spend the time looking carefully, they'll see that things are even more amiss than they seem. And if they stay with it, they'll be happy anyway.

An excellent largely ignored film. They used to call these sleepers.

This movie is a combination of "National Treasure," "Tomb Raider," and "The Descent." Perdita Weeks plays the manically obsessed archeologist, Scarlett, looking for the Philosopher's Stone. (I forgot to include "Harry Potter" in the mix, didn't I?) A clue from Iran leads her to believe the Stone is somewhere in or around the Paris catacombs. She enlists the help of a reluctant ex-boyfriend George (Ben Feldman) for his skills in Aramaic. He then ends up going along for the whole trip. They need help for the more remote areas of the catacombs, so they hire three guides, played by Francios Civil, Marion Lambert, and Ali Marhyar.

Unfortunately, Benji (Edwin Hodge) a videographer making a documentary about Scarlett, also comes along. I say this not due to anything about Hodge's performance, which was solid. No, I say it because a documentary-maker on the expedition could only mean the rest of the movie would be in shaky-cam.

And man, was it. "As Above, So Below" is ruined by the old shake 'n' quake gimmick. This isn't even a horror cliche. It's just a mistake. What's worse, there was a time that Scarlett is alone without Benji or anyone else to agitate the camera at her. For once I thought I'd be able to follow what was going on. Wrong. The camera was attached to her for more jolting and jittering and even less visual coherency.

The movie only has a $5mil budget. So, most of the thrills in the dark never rise above the Halloween haunted house level. These are mostly leering weirdos and creepy sounds that never come to a coherent cause. If the shaky cam is used to obscure poor makeup jobs, then it works. However, cheesy masks than motion sick.

Weeks character spends most of her underground time trying to interpret ancient verse, which strangely enough rhymes in direct translation from Aramaic. That, more than anything else, should have alerted Scarlett that there was some bad magic afoot.

The acting was more solid than usual for a low-budget horror movie. This makes a few awful lines bearable. Weeks performance as Scarlett lifts the rest of the movie. So, it isn't a complete loss. I don't know how anyone prepares to watch for watching a shaky cam movie, but if you don't mind the jerking and jarring, you can mark my rating up three stars.