When a team of explorers ventures into the catacombs that lie beneath the streets of Paris, they uncover the dark secret that lies within this city of the dead.
At first glance this film seemed like yet another found footage horror film, just with a really cool poster this time. I wasn’t expecting anything new or exciting. The Blair Witch Project meets Tomb Raider was what I was thinking about. And that is pretty much what I got, but it was surprisingly very entertaining! The central character, Scarlett (played by Perdita Weeks) is actually a Brit too with long brown hair, just like Lara Croft! It’s like it was fate! Not to mention her vast knowledge of history and the artifacts the encounter throughout the film. It felt like a horror adventure. Honestly, the only thing she was missing was a pair of guns.
I’m not easy to scare, but even I have to admit that there were several moments when I jumped in my seat. Some moments were probably unintentionally funny as well, but I’m convinced that they make it that way on purpose. The intensity was pretty top-notch and the scenes felt realistic, yet with supernatural elements that made them effectively creepy too. There were certainly moments when the characters made decisions that would deem them too stupid to live, but what horror film doesn’t have that? At this point I just try to guess how stupid the character will be. I thought this film handled it cleverly in a few instances. A lot of what happens is also psychological in that the explorers’ past events come back to haunt them. This was pretty interesting and would have been a great device to develop the characters to be somewhat more significant than cannon fodder, but with the limited run time there’s only enough for us to get a glimpse into who they are (or were).
The film takes place in France so the foreign aspect was nice. And because they were touring catacombs it felt extremely claustrophobic. The camera angles were well placed giving us that true first person POV feel when the editing called for it. I think the ending may have turned off a few people but I was more or less fine with it. I am not sure if this film will do well enough to warrant a sequel or if it even needs one based on the plot, but I enjoyed the story. It delivered on what I was expecting and then some. It may be too late to catch this one in the theatres. I thought the release date was a little odd considering that this would be a good October release, but it’s definitely worth a rental.