As Above So Below
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A team of people follow an ancient secret path through the catacombs of Paris to find the mythical philosopher’s stone that turns base metals into gold. Filmed in the actual catacombs of Paris! So much promise, but what a letdown.
As Above, So Below (2014)
Episode 129, 2 Guys and a Chainsaw Horror Movie Review Podcast
Todd: Hello, and welcome to another episode of 2 Guys and a Chainsaw. I’m Todd.
Craig: And I’m Craig.
Todd: This week, we chose the 2014 film As Above, So Below. This is a movie that has been on my list for a while and, Craig, actually, you chose it from our list of films. I’m curious what drove you to this particular one this week? I know we were kind of at a last minute dash to find something, quick, But this was on our list, and you picked it out. What what made you decide, this is the one for this week? I’m not accusing you. Let me put it that way. Because, on paper, by the way, this movie looks like it would be fantastic.
Craig: It does and okay, so that’s the thing like I remember that ad campaign when it came out and like the preview looks pretty good and yeah, like you said it was kind of a last minute Todd. We were trying to figure out, you know, what we’re gonna do and before Todd moved to China, he had me make a list of things that we might potentially wanna do and he kinda tried to load up a hard drive of movies for me, and the reason that I picked this one was because it started with an a.
Todd: Oh my god. And it was really early on the list. You just gave up. Right? You just pulled up the window. You’re like a guy taking a random stab at a Chinese menu hoping, like, he’s gonna get something good.
Craig: Pretty pretty much.
Todd: Wow. Success or failure, Craig?
Craig: Oh, man. Gosh. I have to tell you, seriously like the preview looks good and, I I can see how they could edit together pretty good preview from this movie because there are some interesting visuals. It’s certainly enough to fill a 1 minute trailer and that’s about
Todd: dude, I hated this movie. Oh, man.
Craig: Oh, I hated it. I thought it was we’ll get into the specifics, but
Todd: I just thought it was, like, one of the stupidest movies I’ve ever seen in my life. Now Oh, it was horrible. I don’t remember who put this on the list. I had this feeling when we started that it was me. Do you think it was you?
Craig: I think it was me. I don’t know. I you can have the credit for it.
Todd: I don’t. I’m not passing around blame. I’m certainly not gonna take credit. I’m pretty sure though, however, I at least okay. So you saw the trailers for it. I know that I must have at some point whether you put on the list and I looked it up afterwards or whether I put on the list because it looked intriguing to me. I remember being really intrigued by the write up of the premise to this movie that these this group of people descend into the catacombs of Paris to find the Philosopher’s Stone and follow this sort of Dan Brown esque series of clues, in order to get to it. And and to me, I mean, you know, that’s Indiana Jones. That’s Tomb Raider. It just seemed really, really cool. And so I kept remembering this movie again and again. Oh, we need to watch that. We need to watch that. We never did. And I was really excited to put it on this time. And then as soon as it came on, I realized this was gonna be a found footage movie. Mhmm. Yeah.
Craig: And I know you’re not a huge fan. Everybody Todd I know
Todd: that you’re not fan at all. But I’ve been but truly, in the act of doing this podcast, we have discovered some really good found footage movies, including
Craig: That’s true.
Todd: A movie by the director of this film. John Eric Dowdle, who wrote the screenplay and, directed this film along with his brother, Drew Dowdle, who wrote the screenplay. They did quarantine, and as I remember, we loved quarantine.
Craig: Wait. Did they do quarantine, or did they do wreck? Wasn’t quarantine a remake of wreck? Oh. I think you’re there.
Todd: Your your keyboard. That’s hilarious. So wait a second. We watched wreck, and we love Yeah.
Craig: Which is a great movie, and quarantine is just okay, which doesn’t surprise me that they that they did that movie too. That explains so much. Yeah. Okay. So the the thing about this is it should be super cool, because these apparently are the only folks who’ve ever been given permission by, I don’t know, the French government or the authorities, whomever it is, to actually film in these catacombs in Paris, which exist. They’re real, you know, they’re down there. Oh, yeah. And and it’s where, you know, I gosh. I I really don’t know the history. I’m sorry, folks. I didn’t do any research on this movie at all, but I guess, you know, these they had such a problem with disposing of their dead, I guess. Like, they didn’t have anywhere to put them, so they they built these huge catacombs underneath the city of Paris, and there are just, like, hundreds of thousands of bodies down there and and they’re there. And just like I I Bones. I imagine yeah. Just like, bones. You can tour
Todd: them and look at them and Yeah.
Craig: And and it they’re you know, it’s not like a a nice little American cemetery where everybody has, you know, their own plot or whatever. You know, like, it’s just piles, mounds of bones and bodies. As morbid as that is and, you know, they’re actual people down there, I don’t want to trivialize it or anything, but it’s
Todd: it’s cool. You know, it’s
Craig: a it’s a cool place. It’s a cool concept. It should have been a really cool movie, but, Todd. I just
Todd: Oh. I hate it. The other cool part about it though is the notion. Okay. So it’s a little stereotypical in that I shouldn’t say stereotypical. It’s a little derivative in the way that it kind of starts, and that is in one sense a knock on the movie, but it’s also what I was looking forward to. If you like this sort of thing like I do, the Indiana Jones, the Todd Raider, the Dan Brown type stuff, then you think you’re just gonna love this movie. It stars this woman named Scarlett Marlowe,
Craig: which the name
Todd: is a little silly, who is an
Craig: Is that her is that the actress’s name?
Todd: No. That’s the name of the character, Scarlett Barlow. Oh my god. Who would actually name their child Scarlett Barlow? No. The actress is Perdida Weeks, and, you know, she’s older than she looks, actually, in this movie. She’s in Ready Player 1. She was Kiera in Ready Player 1 that just came out. Oh. But she goes back to, like, Spice World. She was in Spice World. She’s done quite a bit of TV. Actually, I I I really liked her. One of the things I could say about this movie is I didn’t think that she was terrible in this. I didn’t think she was fantastic, but I wasn’t offended by her performance.
Craig: Fair enough, but, like, she’s supposed oh, gosh. She’s supposed to be, like, she’s got, like, 7 PhDs. Yeah.
Todd: Well, her character for sure.
Craig: Yeah. Ridiculous. It’s it’s ridiculous. I mean, you say she’s older than she looks. I don’t have any idea how old she is, but she looks like she’s about 24. And, you know, I don’t wanna be, you know, terribly critical. She’s lovely. She’s a a very pretty lady, but, like, no.
Todd: I don’t believe this for
Craig: a second that you are some genius 7 times PhD. False. Don’t buy it. Yeah. Just get down into the catacombs already.
Todd: She has a British accent. She is such a Lara Croft rip off. It’s kinda funny. And Todd down to the fact that, apparently, she’s super rich, and she has a father who was an academic who was searching his whole life apparently for this philosopher’s stone, ended up killing himself. You you hear all about this just kind of in the first few minutes of the movie because they’re interviewing her. Right? Right. Found footage thing. And she’s a scholar, and, like, one of her degrees is in symbology, which I don’t think exists, but, you know, that’s the same thing that the Dan Brown character supposedly has a you know, is a specialist in, and she studies alchemy or
Craig: Yeah. I mean, it’s a real thing. Like No. Of course, it’s not.
Todd: It’s, like, stupid. I mean, that might be something that, like, somebody specializes in if they’re a history major.
Craig: Yeah. It just I I’m sorry. Like, I’m so naive, but, like, they are looking for this Philosopher’s Stone that was invented by Nicholas Flamel. I legit thought that that was all just made up Harry Potter stuff.
Todd: I was like, is
Craig: this a Harry Potter movie? I didn’t know that these were actually real things and real people. Yeah. But, yeah, that’s what she’s looking for. And, apparently, like, the philosopher’s stone, it can turn base metals into Todd, and so it can grant you all these riches. And then I I guess it’s, like, the also the key to immortality or something. Yeah.
Todd: And and, like Well, the stupid thing about it is if you were truly a scholar and have all these PhDs of all these things, you would know this is bullshit. Like Yes. You might be interested in finding some stuff that Nicholas Lamel did or maybe some of his lost papers or something, but you wouldn’t actually believe that such a thing would exist.
Craig: Yeah. And I’m jumping around and I apologize, but, like, she she hooks up with this friend, you know, like, they obviously have some history which is alluded to early on and then, you know, kinda gets flushed out later. Like, they have some sort of, like, romantic history or whatever, this guy named George. And, she she gets George to help her because, apparently, these inscriptions that she’s found it starts out with her, like, she’s looking for something in Iran and, like, it’s a big idea a big deal that she’s there because it’s illegal for her to be there as a woman or something. But she she finds these inscriptions, but they have to be translated. I didn’t even understand what, like, they weren’t in Aramaic, but they had to be translated through Aramaic or something. And, like, Aramaic is the one language that she doesn’t speak, and so she gets her friend George to do it. And so they end up, like, you know, she gets him and, he’s reluctant, like, no. I’m not doing it. He’s like, okay. Fine, I guess, because you’re cute or whatever.
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: And what made me so mad, Todd, this this is the thing that infuriated me about this movie is that he translates this stuff out of Aramaic. Yeah. And it rhymes I don’t in English. I don’t It doesn’t even make any sense. I don’t. I had my head
Todd: in my hands at that point. I said, are you freaking kidding me? No. You’re absolutely right.
Clip: Winged vulture leads the way with, with brightest light in darkest day. Underneath the heaven’s Craig, what is lost shall be regained. Halfway ‘twixt the darkest gate, and this tablet laid atop a parid fate.
Todd: And but, you know, this kinda gets to the point of why this movie just doesn’t click is because this should not be a found footage film. This is where, you know, if you have very little money, but you have this awesome idea for this amazing globe trotting adventure that, you know, culminates in the Paris catacombs with all these riddles and these clues and things like that. That’s a big budget globe trotting movie. Right?
Craig: Yeah.
Todd: And if you don’t have any money and you think, let’s save some money by making this a found footage film, you’re leading yourself down the wrong path, and this movie is the perfect example why this doesn’t work. And, also, unfortunately, it kinda lays bare how stupid all of these movies kind of are if you really try to think through them logically and put them in reality. Mhmm. The way that this movie starts with her going in, it’s kind of exciting. She finds a thing or whatever. And then she’s having this dialogue with a cameraman about Mhmm. Like, the thoughts off the top of her head about how it’s in how it’s in Aramaic and whatever. And he’s like, do you speak Aramaic? And she’s like, no. But I do know someone who does.
Craig: George does. Yeah. And, you know,
Todd: at this point in any other movie, you know, like an Indiana Jones movie or whatever. I mean, this is so cliche. Right? Suddenly, you’d be, like, whisking away, like, halfway across the globe. Yeah. And you’d immediately be thrown into some there’s there’s somebody working on some crazy ass thing somewhere else, right? Some hyper genius, whatever, who’s who has his own thing. And then the protagonist, the story comes in, and it’s clear that they have this this history that goes back that’s just implied by their dialogue. Right? Mhmm. And so, they try to do that same thing here, but because it’s a guy shooting all this with a handy cam, it doesn’t come off. Mhmm. So they go to this church, which is apparently where this dude is working, and the dude’s name is George. George. And she breaks in the door, and the guy’s like, dude, you’re you’re breaking in the church. What are you doing? She’s like, whatever. I gotta go up and see him. She climbs the stairs up to the top where this guy is working on these church bells. You know, he comes out and he’s played by an actor named Ben Feldman. And I was like, I know this guy. I I know this guy. Like, I’ve seen this. He was a really good character in something. He was in Mad Men. Did you watch Mad Men?
Craig: No. Oh, fantastic. Handsome, though. Oh, yeah. He is
Todd: he he looks like he could be, Robert Downey Junior’s, like, son or something, I think. Yeah. Todd looking guy. Yeah. He played, one of my favorite characters in Mad Men, Michael Ginsberg. Anyway, I was like, oh, yeah. It’s that guy. I really liked him, and I was kind of surprised to find a guy I recognized in this movie Todd be completely honest. And you know, he comes out and he’s all dingy and dirty and he’s like been working on the bells.
Clip: Hi. How are you? Whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it. It’s Sydney. This is Sydney. No. Who’s this guy? Who are you? I’m Benjie. Oh. He’s making a documentary about my search for this stone. Of course. Do yourself a favor. Stay far away from this one. I just need to ask you one favor. Just one favor. Benjie, did she mention to you the last time we were together, I literally wound up in a Turkish prison. Oh, George. It was not a prison. It was more of a jail.
Todd: But all this is filmed by, like, again, a guy, like, he’s filming some 2 people talking at a party. Mhmm. And then finally, like, the bells start ringing, and he runs outside, and he looks down. Like, he looks up in joy at the bells ringing, and the camera zooms down at some people who seem shocked at down in the street looking up. And she makes some comment like, oh, wow. They look so surprised. He says, yeah. That’s the look of these people who haven’t heard their bells, you know, their church bells ring in 500 years or something. So like he’s this amazing mill mechanical genius who Mhmm. Fixed the bells for them. And once again, in any other movie, this would have been like oh, yeah. You know, this guy’s cool. You know, it’s kinda punches it. But again, you’re just it just it just doesn’t feel cinematic.
Craig: No. And it and it plays out to nothing. Yeah. Like the fact that he, you know, has all this mechanical skill or whatever never comes up again. These characters and I feel like they tried to give them depth, like that actually is central to the plot in the end that they have these backstories. But it’s just it just seems so forced and, like, they they are just they’re so flat. And, like, that guy, the the I think it’s the guy who’s making the documentary. About what? I don’t know. Like, he’s just following this girl around with a camera. Benji, like, one would hope that he would be an interesting character, but he’s not. He’s just the guy behind the camera who follows them around. Like
Todd: You don’t even see him until halfway through the movie. Yeah. Seems like
Craig: And and so so then they hook up with, like, they have to find, I don’t know, some, like, cool, hipster I mean, what do you even say? I mean, like, they have to, like, oh, we have to find, like, the like, they go down into, like, a tour of the catacombs, like, a a touristy tour that you or I would go on, but that’s not good enough. Like, they have to, you know, go into the forbidden areas, and so they have to find, like, this cool guy at a club who, like, knows the catacombs. Like, what? Like like this like this 20 something club kid who, like, is just happens to be an expert. Like, he just hangs out down there. So, like, he just goes down there. Any sense. Yeah. And, like like, it it’s, like, maybe suggested that he’s kind of, like, a graffiti artist or something, because he tags everything where he goes and but it’s it’s so derivative and and stupid and then they introduced far too many characters. I I couldn’t even
Todd: Couldn’t even remember.
Craig: Like, I did no. I and I didn’t even know, like like Who all
Todd: was in the group?
Craig: Hour into the movie. An hour into the movie, I didn’t even know who all was down there with me.
Todd: I’m like, I don’t need Me too. I swear to you, there’s at one point toward the end when the there were only 3 of them left, and one of them walks away. And I was like, who was that guy?
Craig: Exactly. You don’t even know, and you don’t care. Like, well,
Todd: Todd doesn’t make sense. These people are far too young to have all these skills and knowledge that they’re purported to have. It’s one of those films where they walk through, and they’re solving these riddles and these puzzles as they’re getting deeper and deeper into the catacombs, and they’re able to call up ancient texts and verses and things at the drop of a hat between the 2 of them. You know, like there are 2 people who are, you know, in the middle of studying for an archaeology exam or something like that and and reviewing and finishing each other’s sentences for them. Like, they’re so in sync. Like, maybe one of these people could be crazy ridiculous antisocial enough that that’s their whole life, but, like, for 2 of them to be that way. You know, he pulls out a map of the catacombs, and he sits down, and he’s like, well, such history says that such and such happened here, and then there was this cave in here, so it must be here. And then another person chimes in, well, it could be there because I know that this leads to there and this doesn’t lead to there. And then the dude who knows the tunnels is like, but there’s nothing there. It’s like, what? I could find a way and, you know, just Todd kind of all comes so cleanly together in the course of Yeah. 30 seconds.
Craig: That was the other that was right, that was the other thing that was so frustrating. Like, supposedly, you know, they get down there and they’re gonna find these secret passageways that nobody’s been in for, like, 600 years or whatever, but it takes them absolutely no effort whatsoever. Like, any at any point when they come across something, like, oh, this is mysterious. Oh, I just figured it out, like Yeah. Like like, in 3 seconds. Like, there’s no way that nobody else has been down there if it was that freaking easy to find. Right.
Todd: They’re walking. It’s so stupid. The worst part that they have to do is they have to crawl over some bones, which they make this huge deal about how they have to crawl over these bones. There are bones all around them. They’re in the catacombs. These people are students of history and supposedly super smart. How are they suddenly getting freaked out by this this knowledge that apparently that they just realized they’re gonna have to crawl over some bones? So it’s either go through this one tunnel, which has been sealed up, which they’d have to break through or crawl over some bones. The guy who knows the catacombs says, we need to crawl over the bones. The woman says, who suddenly knows the catacombs better than this guy who they needed to get down there Mhmm. Says, no, this is the much shorter way. And he says, we can’t go that way. Well, why not? Because it’s evil. It’s evil. It’s an it’s an evil corridor. The evil corridor. Right? He had a friend who went down there.
Clip: We had a friend named Latope. In English, Latope say, the mob. He lived down here for years. He knew every corridor of every system except this one. He knew there was something horrible down there. But eventually, he had to see what it was. He went inside and nobody has seen him since.
Craig: Right. Oh my god.
Clip: And and,
Craig: you know, here’s another thing where it it it really should have been a very cool premise. Now I again, I’m not very schooled in this area. I’ve I’ve never read Dante’s Inferno. Like, I know, you know, the general things about it, like the 9 circles of hell or whatever. But in okay. I lied. I said I didn’t do any research.
Todd: I did read You’re gonna bring this up, aren’t you?
Craig: I know. I did read the IMDB trivia briefly because it was long and I didn’t care. But, so, like, supposedly, you know, like, they’re supposed to be descending through the 9 levels of hell, and when you read about it in the IMDB trivia, it sounds interesting, but it doesn’t read in the movie at all. Like, I I didn’t get that at all. No. When they’re down there, they keep seeing weird things, but because it’s all, you know, handheld camera, it’s all found footage, like you just get these very very brief glimpses of like spooky things. For for, you know, a split second I saw a creepy kid in the corner or for a split second I saw some guy that we’ve never seen before sitting in a chair like, but in watching the movie, I had no idea what was going on. I, you know, I had no idea who that was supposed to be and it was so fast and it was so dark and
Todd: And it didn’t matter.
Craig: No. And and it didn’t and it didn’t really play out very much at all. I mean, eventually, what happens is, like, supposedly. And again even in reading about it, I’m like, oh, that’s what was going on? Like, I guess, all of these people in descending through these 9 layers of or levels of hell or whatever, they all have some sin that they’re concealing. They have to either acknowledge it or and repent for it or they die. And so some of them die and some of them don’t. And Yeah.
Todd: And and none of that is even remotely obvious or even No. Remotely necessary to start thinking about until the last 10 minutes of the movie. Right. So unless you go back and you read the trivia on the IMDB page about how all of these interesting connections to Dante’s Inferno, you would never know. And like you said, it doesn’t even matter. Mhmm. And that’s one of the problems with this movie. It’s I’m just thinking, like, okay. Take a damn broad. Take, like, angels and demons. Right? Mhmm. Part of the fun of that movie, there’s, like, this path of the Illuminati that they’re following. Right? And they’re going to all these different sculptures and places around Venice like that’s the point of the film right and you’re learning about it along with the characters and so you’re able to kind of solve these puzzles and and maybe try to get ahead of them or try to piece things together, at least, you know, there’s a satisfying aspect of going through the mystery with them. Sure. What’s the point of basing this on Dante’s 7 layers of hell or whatever if if you as the viewer can’t kind of go through this? You know, there’s no point in this movie where anyone says and and a good point would have been when they go through an area that says abandon hope all ye who enter here.
Clip: Mhmm.
Todd: You know, they even make mention. Is this the gateway to hell or whatever? And you’re kinda thinking that maybe that’s the direction this movie is going. These PhDs and 5 different things who seem to know everything about everything else could have started piecing together this aspect of the mystery of of what’s happening and maybe making mention of it. And I actually kinda would’ve gone along with it. You know what I mean? I would’ve I would’ve respected the movie more if that wasn’t some fun little writer’s thing that Mhmm. That they just kind of did and hid from the audience as opposed to it could have been an aspect of the plot that would have pulled me through it and kept me engaged and kept me interested and that there’s a it would have at least given me a reason for all this stuff that’s going on. But like you said, it just seems like a like a bunch of random crap. Yeah. And and
Craig: it’s derivative. You know?
Todd: It’s just Yeah.
Craig: And I don’t know if we were supposed to be, like, I believe Dante’s
Todd: Inferno enough to be able to
Craig: put that together. Right. Like, I I can’t even tell if we’re supposed to be in on it. I can’t tell if the characters are in on it. Like, I didn’t get the sense that they even really understood what was happening. To be fair, I guess there are some interesting visuals, but you can’t just throw together of, I mean, I guess you can. They did. You just throw together, you know, a few interesting visuals and then, like, try to tie that together and call it a plot because it’s just not, like
Todd: Yeah.
Craig: And and because it’s so obscure and you’re really not sure what’s going on and and they try to explain things, but I feel like they explain things after the fact. Mhmm. They’re in these underground catacombs and part of them are underwater. So they have to, like, you know, swim around in these catacombs and stuff. Again, it sounds great on paper, but it’s just boring. When they’re underwater, like, you know, some spirit or something grabs somebody. And then we find out later that somebody’s George’s, I think, brother drowned, and that’s what he feels guilty about because he left him behind, not intentionally, like, he was going to get help or whatever, but he got lost. And so, like, that’s his sin, like, he abandoned his brother or whatever. And at at at some point, there’s, a car on fire and somebody burning up in the car, all of this down in the catacombs, which again, like, should like, they took a freaking car down into those catacombs and set it on fire. Like, that should have been super freaking cool, but it was just so random, like, what is happening? Yeah. I don’t even understand.
Todd: I felt like the supernatural stuff almost was more of a let down than the stuff that preceded it. You know, we we talk about the descent and how much we’d love the descent. Yeah. And I think at least I and I think both of us maintain that some of the scariest stuff that happens in the descent is before the monsters even come out.
Clip: Right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s just
Craig: the atmosphere. It’s
Todd: the atmosphere, it’s the the claustrophobia, the the cave ins, this I mean, the fact they can’t get back and and they’re trying to get I mean, it’s just it’s just super messed up and you can totally relate to it. They’re in the catacombs under France and somehow they manage Todd make this seem boring like Mhmm. Like you’re just wandering around through a haunted house. And at at first, I was I was trying to get into it. I was thinking it was gonna be kind of like the descent in that the first half was gonna be these puzzles and these clues that they had to piece together. Second half would be supernatural, but I probably enjoy the first half the most, you know, like
Clip: Mhmm.
Todd: Like a computer adventure game, like these puzzles. But that just highlighted how lousy this whole first of all, I think the scale of it. If you’re gonna do a movie like this where you’re going in and there are these ancient people who’ve built all these these clever traps and these these puzzles and things to hide, you know, their treasure, It’s gotta be at a bigger scale.
Clip: Mhmm.
Todd: I think I’m convinced Todd that now. It just has to be there’s gotta be a point where you wander into a giant room that’s that’s 15 stories tall that’s hidden under the earth that nobody’s seen for 100 of years that with things you gotta swing across and crapple, you know, 1 eyed Willie ship or whatever. Mhmm. The the pit, the snake pit in Indiana Jones, like, you’ve gotta have big set pieces like that. And this movie doesn’t have anything like that. And so it’s quote unquote big set pieces when they’re going through. It’s just like another room.
Craig: Well, and that’s the thing. I mean, gosh. I I’m I’m not going to try to give this movie too much credit, but maybe that was some sort of, gosh, a limitation
Clip: Sure.
Craig: Based on what they had available because, you know, they really were down there. Maybe and, you know, as cool as it is that they were really down there, maybe it would have been wise of them to film what they could down there and then also have some big set pieces. Because ultimately, like, they’ll go into a room and then they’ll crawl over some bones or, like, swim, you know, through a flooded tunnel or something. And then it’s like, look, We’re back in the same room we were just in. Yeah. You are. And that’s not at all interesting. That is boring as hell. Yeah.
Todd: And then they’ll go into these rooms, and there’ll be some riddle. It’s like, it’s a dead end. No. There’s gotta be a way. Look around. And there’s a scarab, like, carved in the wall. Scarab.
Clip: Egyptians. Pyramids. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Pharoahs. Didn’t pharaohs have some kind of, like, a strange way of of hiding the tombs? Yes. Yes. Did Ptolemaic hinge? I have never I’ve never seen could this be, one second? Can you just explain what I’m talking about? What’s a Ptolemaic? Ptolemaic hinge. Basically, they form a kind of riddle. It’s a sort of, ancient Egyptian padlocks. You have to take the exact right stone from the exact right place or Or what? The ceiling will collapse on you and kill you, Jesus. What? Great. Are you kidding? You have to be
Todd: shitting me.
Clip: Okay. It’s fine. It’s okay. Underneath heaven’s reign. It’s not heaven’s reign. Celestial spheres. The celestial spheres. 8 planets. Right? Wait. Wait. Did the last 2 weren’t discovered yet? Okay. So 6 planets. 6 planets. 1234 Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Scarlett. Scarlett. Scarlett. Scarlett. What? Don’t touch anything. Was this about before or after Copernicus?
Craig: And, like, all of this happens in the course of 10 seconds. Yes. Like Yes. I know.
Todd: And that just for me, that just highlights how this doesn’t work. Uh-huh. First of all, the room is, like, half the size of my bedroom. Yeah. Yeah. And second of all, they blow through it. It’s like, you know that scene in Indiana Jones where he puts the staff in and the light shines through and it shows them where to, you know, dig or whatever. It’s like if that scene instead of him, you know, creeping down there, coming up there, measuring the staff out, finding the right hole, putting it in, that beam of light comes in, you know, the music swells up, we get these dramatic angles and as the sunlight show slowly comes across and it’s just a really dramatic scene. It’s like if you took that and instead it was like 420 somethings who run-in and they’re like, oh, this must be the room. Yeah. This is it. Do you have the staff? Yeah. I got the staff. Well, good. I’ve got this thing. Maybe we should put on the staff. Yeah. Let’s do it. Okay. Which hold we put it? It’s number 4. Oh, no. No. No. No. Wait. Remember the ancient poem? Oh, yeah. It’s not 4. 4 is 5. That’s right. Put it in whole 5. Okay. Here we go. BMO light comes in. There it is. Let’s go.
Craig: Yeah. Even if they were that smart to figure it out, one would think that they wouldn’t be so reckless, like, and and that’s just it’s just so unbelievable. Like, it’s just so unbelievable. I get it. She’s excited, you know, she’s gonna find this magic rock that is amazing or whatever. Great, you’re super excited, but seriously, if nobody’s been down there for 700 years, what is your freaking hurry? Yeah. Take a minute. Like, maybe double check your work in this case before you just start ripping out, oh, well, you know, it’s just this one stone and if I pull out the wrong one, we’re all dead, but I’m pretty sure it’s this one. Come on. And the other people who are down there with her are are just idiots and like they no. Don’t do it. Oh, I get it. It’s fine. Thank goodness that worked.
Todd: That’s right. And it all just seems so lame because it shot through somebody’s handy cam.
Craig: Yeah. Yeah. And and and their head, you know, like, he puts head cameras on them and I am not I like I I don’t hate found footage and in fact, I’ve recently watched some found footage movies that I thought were, you know, pretty creative. And especially if you’re working on a small budget, you know, it saves a lot of money. And it can be effective, but you’re right. It just didn’t work here and if this movie had been good, which I think that it had the potential to be, it wouldn’t have been found footage. It would have been, you know, more, traditionally shot and and I think that that could have made it better. As it turns out, it doesn’t really matter, because it was so poorly written. Like, Todd, I just can’t get over it. Sorry, guys out there, like, that I’m being so negative about it. But honestly, you know, we watch, a lot of movies that we go in knowing they’re going to be bad and that’s okay and and can even be fun sometimes, but it’s kinda like this movie just didn’t have any excuse. Like, you you seem like you’ve got a decent budget. You were given permission to actually go down into this historical site.
Todd: Cool concepts.
Craig: Yeah. You just failed miserably. Congratulations.
Todd: And and I have to say while we’re on the subject of the of the 4 of the format not working, this has to be another one of those where if I had seen it on a big screen, I would be losing my lunch. I mean, the camera whips around so much. Uh-huh. But I was watching on a small computer screen. Thankfully, I didn’t plug it into my bigger TV or else, I think, yeah, I would have had to take a few pauses in this one. And Todd doesn’t normally bother me too much, but in this case, it was just so obvious that it did bother me a little bit.
Craig: Well and the jerking around doesn’t typically bother me all that much and like I you know, it didn’t bother me in a physical sense in this movie either, but, as the camera was jerking around so much like I said before every once in a while you’ll just catch a glimpse of something that’s supposed to be scary, like something that’s not supposed to be there. And that happens all the time especially in these town footage movies, but it wasn’t scary because I didn’t have any idea what I was seeing. Yeah. And, like, there was little to no explanation and maybe in fairness, you know, by the time I was an hour in, I just so didn’t care that like I don’t care who that spooky kid is that I just saw in a quick flash. There’s a guy burning up in a car. Okay. Yeah. Next room, please. It comes Todd a lot
Todd: of left field and it’s not forecast. You know, in literature and in films, there is foreshadowing, and it’s done for a reason. Yeah. And this movie had no foreshadowing of anything.
Craig: No. And I I’ve said it before, and so I I hate to be redundant, but it it seemed like they tried later to explain things, but, like, it’s too late. Like Mhmm. It already happened. I don’t care now. I don’t even know how many of them were down there. I I think that it was the 2 it was George and Scarlett, and then they had the camera guy, Benjie. And then I think there were 3 others, but I kept getting There was another woman. The other 2 guys, there was, like one of them’s name was Papillon, which I thought was hilarious. Isn’t that kinda like a little dog? Yeah. Papillon, Suksy, and Zed. Yes. But I couldn’t keep trap track of them, and I I kept confusing Papion and Zed. They may as well have been the same character because I couldn’t distinguish them at all. When they’re down there, you know, like I said before, like, supposedly, they’re going through the 9
Clip: levels of Dante’s Inferno of
Craig: hell or whatever, and I get violently killed on the 4th level, which is supposed to be Violence. Violence. I yeah. I don’t know. I whatever. And Zed gets killed at some point I think and, Benji, gets killed at some point. And if you read online about the events that surround their deaths, like there’s supposedly some explanation for each one, but it went it flew right over my head. I had no idea, and the other thing that gosh, I I can’t believe I’m saying this because I don’t wanna admit that I was actually moved to irritation by this movie, but I was. Like like, they’re supposed to be down there, Like, they’re in France, and they’re supposed to be down there in, you know, these French catacombs or whatever, and they’re translating Aramaic for a long time. But then the further the deeper down they go, like, did they dig to Egypt? Because then all of a sudden everything is Egyptian.
Clip: Like, what? Yeah.
Todd: There’s just so many things that stretch credulity and you’re willing to give, I mean, you know, it’s a movie. So, of course, you’re willing to okay Yeah. Philosopher’s stone. Okay. So she finds this philosopher’s stone. Somebody gets hurt, and she holds the stone against the person and it heals. I will say that this is a really risky thing to do with the found footage movie. The very nature of found footage is a kind of realism.
Clip: Mhmm.
Todd: And so when ghosts and things are different, you know, because it’s like a supernatural we’re kind of unsure about. But but when you’re talking like real magic, it’s really hard to I think it just doesn’t really fit with this medium really well. And it just feels a little off when she does this. But I was willing to give it a bit of a pass. Okay. Well, I guess it’s the stone. I mean, there’s no special effects or anything. There’s no real
Craig: Yeah. I don’t know. You know, I don’t know how they I don’t know how they did that. I mean, because, like, the first she heals, I I feel like Sukxie, like, breaks her arm or something, and and she heals it with the stone and, like, you know, in in one moment, the arm is, like, broken and bloody and then she, like, passes the stone over it and it’s fine. And and, yeah, I don’t know how they did that. You know, it was relatively convincing.
Todd: But again, it’s like, well, this is a this was Shouse, and that’s like, okay. Let’s go. You know what I mean? It’s like Yeah. It it’s not a big moment. It’s just something that happens, and they go on. Later on in the movie, they discover that she doesn’t have the real philosopher’s stone.
Craig: Yeah. Just kidding that I I accidentally grabbed a fake one.
Todd: Like So why did it heal her at at first? So it only works once?
Craig: Yeah. Yeah. Apparently, it’s a fake one that just works once. Like It’s like a trick fake stone.
Todd: It’s like those it’s like those birthday candles that you blow out, but they come back on
Clip: and you
Todd: blow out. But really? I mean, it’s just so lame.
Craig: Yeah. And I’m only saying that because I read it, like, I I in the trivia online, I read that. Well, the first stone that she finds is a fake one that only works once. Well, how in God’s name would anybody know that? Like, you know, I don’t know and maybe maybe I wasn’t paying close enough attention because seriously, by that point, I was pretty much tuned out. I’m like, oh my god. Just be over already. I’m done.
Todd: And what sense does that even make? Like, you create a stone that could heal people, and then you’ll create a stone that’ll heal people once. I’m like, really kind of amazing. Like, that seems like it would be even harder to make than the stone that heals people all the time.
Craig: Yeah. At some point at some point when there’s only the 3 of them left, when it’s just Papillon and Suksi and George left, George gets hurt, and she’s like, oh, I just realized this isn’t the real stone. It’s a fake one, so I’m gonna have to run back and get the other one. And, like, she runs back. They have spelunked through this huge shaft I know. Then she climbs up like she’s a freaking American Ninja Warrior or something. And of its stuff. Yeah. And and just, like, runs back and grabs it. Like, they like, they’ve been making their way through these catacombs for the whole movie and there’s, oh, hold on a second. I have to run back, and she just runs back really quick. And I I don’t know if it was supposed to be symbolism or or what, but, like, she gets there and like she’s looking for the real stone and she can’t find it, but she finds a mirror and she looks at herself in the mirror. And again, just from reading the trivia, I read that the the the philosopher’s stone is not an actual concrete object, it’s inside you. Like, okay. Well, then I guess
Todd: you just wasted a whole
Craig: lot of freaking time down in those catacombs.
Todd: She just needed to look into a mirror and believe in herself. I think exactly what it said in the trivia. So she goes down, and now she is the philosopher’s stone. She can heal by the touch of her hand. Okay. So there there are 2 things that, okay, I laughed out loud. First of all, I was like, you’re you’re kidding me that she’s really just gonna blast through all this. I thought for sure that she was just gonna get more and more lost. Couldn’t believe that that actually happened. But a couple scenes before this, they had gone through this harrowing experience where they were these faces coming out of the rocks. Mhmm. And the whole reason that he’s injured is this big rock monster thing. Like, it’s like a guy. It looks like a rock person, rock zombie, or something comes out and attacks his friend. And so, as she’s running back through all this, she blast by Satan in the Satan chair. She blast by all this, and then, like, the rock monsters in front of her, and it’s like she just punches it or something. It falls down, and she runs past it like it’s just nothing. And then she comes back from the thing, and again, rock monster comes in. She just punches it and runs by.
Craig: It all happened so fast that I don’t I didn’t even know that. I didn’t even know what was going on. Like, I was I was reading the stuff online and they’re like, oh, and then there was Satan in the Satan chair. I’m like, there was?
Todd: Like, I feel like I didn’t even remember.
Craig: Gosh. It’s it’s so silly.
Todd: The other thing that’s so stupid is when they and, you know, he tells a story about his friend Todd or whatever who who went down there and they never saw him. You know, he was down there 2 years ago. And after they crawl through the bone shaft and two things happen. There’s another person down there, and it’s this guy. Yeah. And he’s like, you? You’re here? I thought you were dead.
Craig: Nope. I’m not. Okay.
Todd: We’ll follow you. Like, really? What the hell?
Craig: I know. Todd, there were so many things like that. Like, even when they very first go down there, one of the first things that they encounter is, like, some group of people holding, like, a black mass. And the guy who’s leading them down there is, like
Clip: There is always some weird people down here. Like,
Craig: oh, yeah. Don’t mind them. They’re just having a black mass.
Todd: They do that. They do that. It’s weird people down here like my friend for the past 2 years who Yeah. Just been wandering.
Craig: Yeah. So, some of them die, some of them don’t. And then eventually, like, they they get to another shaft, which I’m sure is just the same shaft that they’ve gone down, like, 4 times already. And somehow they figure out the girl, because she can just figure out anything at the drop of a hat, she’s, like, oh, we have to jump in there, and they’re, like, you’re crazy. It’s a big huge shaft. And they’re, like, no. She’s, yeah, we have to we have to confess our sins and then jump in there. No. Okay. I don’t know. George confesses that he, again, inadvertently left his brother to die, like he was gonna go get help, but he got lost. He didn’t get back in time, so that was his big sin. And Pap, says that he has a kid, but he has denied that it’s his, and that’s his big sin. What was hers? I don’t even oh, she her, her dad tried Todd her dad yeah. Her dad committed suicide and She didn’t take his phone call. Yeah. He had tried to call her, which I guess maybe explains the phone that was ringing down there in the catacombs at some point.
Todd: Oh, good point. Thank you for putting that together for me. Because and I’m thinking, you’re in hell. You’re supposed to confess your sins. How do you know which of your sins you’re supposed to confess? Yeah. Is each of these the the worst thing that they’ve done?
Clip: Are they
Craig: only supposed Todd confess 1?
Todd: Are they do they need to go through a laundry? Shouldn’t you do at least 2 or 3 in case those are the ones that matter?
Craig: And if if those are the worst things that they’ve ever done, they’re pretty decent people.
Todd: They’re really great. They don’t deserve to be going through hell in the first place. I’ve I neglected to take a phone call.
Craig: Yeah. Oh, gosh. So they confess their sins and then they jump in this hole and like it’s 10 seconds of what looks like falling and then they I don’t even know they end up in like some room or something and like I think the hole closes up behind them. So they’re kind of freaked out about that, but they realize that there’s some sort of hole in the floor, but it’s covered with what ends up being a like a manhole cover, but they’re trying and trying to pull it up, but it won’t come up and then they realize if they push it, it will go down and, like, when they push it, they can see light coming up or whatever. And again, in theory, this is kind of a cool concept, like, what happens is and I guess this comes from the inferno, you know after you jump down this pit in hell or whatever, then gravity is reversed, and that’s what happens to them. Like they’re pushing down, but when they come out on the other side, they’re actually coming up out of the ground. And they come up out of the ground apparently in Paris, apparently everything’s, you know, normal. I I kind of expect I expected it to be a fake out like
Clip: Uh-huh.
Craig: I I expected them to like be, you know, really stuck in some sort of hell world or something. I don’t know. But apparently, it wasn’t. And so, they just stand there and look at each other for a second, and then Pap just turns around and walks away. And George and Scarlet hug. Yeah. Yeah. And then it cuts back to the interview footage from the very beginning of the movie which was of no consequence. Yeah. Like, it was just it was a lame ending to a lame movie,
Todd: and I was glad it was over. Well, there was no character journey. There was supposed to be, I guess, they all came to terms with their sin, except they did it in the last 2 minutes. Mhmm. And until then, none of this was really leading them to that. This is just something that she figured out last minute, and they were all like, okay. I guess we have nothing better to do, so let’s do it. Mhmm. And we, as the viewer, could never have figured this out going through this. And everything that every single thing that we have been saying about Dante’s Inferno comes from after Craig and I watched the movie scratching our heads and looking to make some sense of this, went online, and went to the IMDB trivia page
Clip: Right.
Todd: Where I am sure the director of the film himself put all this crap in. Yeah. You know, You’d have to have a degree, you know, in 4 different Yeah. 4 different degrees in order to piece this together that it has anything because the movie itself makes no mention of it.
Craig: Yeah. I I mean, I know that you’re not very smart, but I think of myself as being a relatively intelligent and fairly well educated person. For sure. And and, you know, I would never count myself an expert in that arena, but seriously like if if I was supposed to get it, I I totally missed it. Like, I I had no idea I would have never made that connection and
Todd: Well, even if you had made the connection, what difference would it have made? It’s fun trivia aside from the fact that, okay. I guess the whole movie was these people making a journey through hell. The details of it really didn’t end up mattering. It’s just some stuff they saw.
Craig: Yeah. But even then, like, if if that’s the case, like, if that’s what they were going for, like, they were going through these 9 levels of hell, like, it it didn’t seem that particularly hellish. It just looked like they were walking around in some tunnels. Yeah. And again, like, the the the catacombs, you know, that’s a a cool thing and, yeah, we actually got to see some of the bones and stuff sometimes, but most of the time it just kinda looked like they were walking around in the sewer, like Could
Todd: have been anything.
Craig: That’s not good enough. Yeah.
Todd: You didn’t even see a lot of bones and skeletons. I mean, I experienced a lot of stuff, and, you know, it’s just it was just rock walls. And a lot of it looked exactly the same. I mean, they were probably going through the same areas. In fact, they were marching. Sure they were. Yeah. So what a lot of potential completely wasted, you know.
Craig: I’m glad that you at least felt the same way that I did because I just when it was over, I was just Todd, that was bad, like, I just didn’t like it at all, and it’s and it it is too bad, you know, it did have a lot of potential. It, I’m not even I’m not even gonna do my normal thing
Clip: where I’m
Todd: like, well,
Craig: the act the acting wasn’t horrible. Like, I’m not even gonna bother with that. It was just bad. Listeners, if you haven’t watched it, I don’t recommend it. It was Yeah. It wasn’t fun. No. No.
Todd: It’s irritating actually. You’re confused most of the time. It’s it really asks you to make it has a lot of ridiculous things that happen all throughout. It really stretches credulity a lot, and then the found footage aspect of it just throws cold water on anything fun that could be in there. It’s just not cinematic or exciting or anything like that. You know, it just it just points out to me, like, you can’t just take a particular genre and say, hey, let’s do it in this way. And sometimes it’s never gonna work. Mhmm. Maybe it’ll work someday. Maybe somebody will figure out how to make this kind of movie, you know, shot on a handycam look thrilling and exciting. But I’m thoroughly convinced that this is why these kind of movies are more cinematic.
Craig: Mhmm. Oh, yeah. It’s interesting because the director I
Todd: was going back through his stuff aside from quarantine, which we never did see. He did a movie called Devil. Have you seen that one? That one takes place in an elevator.
Craig: Yeah. I saw it. It was alright.
Todd: I kinda liked that one. I mean, I it wasn’t the best movie I’d seen, but I came away from it thinking it was kinda clever.
Craig: And and and, you know, kinda unique, you know, was all done in, you know, that very claustrophobic space of the elevator, and that’s that’s different. I enjoyed it.
Todd: Yeah. I like that. So I mean, I hold out some hope for this for this team, the Dowdle brothers or whatever they call themselves. But this this is this is definitely not, gonna win them any Oscars for sure. No. Well, thank you again for listening to another episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. We sure hope you enjoyed the episode more than we enjoyed this movie. You can find us online at Google Play, Stitcher, Itunes, wherever your favorite podcasts are. You can also find our website, 2 guys dot redfortynet.com, where we not only have past episodes of our podcast, but also a few written movie reviews for you to watch. Find us on Facebook as well. Give us some feedback. Let us know what you think.
Craig: Have a lot of fun watching those written reviews.
Todd: Definitely. I told you I told you he wasn’t smart, folks. You heard it from me. Until next time. I’m Todd,
Craig: and I’m Craig with 2 Guys and a Chainsaw.