Scarlett is a modern day Indiana Jones, a student of history and alchemy who likes to play at being tomb raider. The movie begins with her in Iran, investigating some underground caves moments before they are about to be blown up. Discovering a hidden room she finds the key to help her on the next part of her quest…
In Paris she begins making a documentary of her quest and meets up with an old friend who likes to fix broken church bells for kicks. He helps to decipher some of the symbols that she found in Iran which they believe will lead them to the Philosophers stone. After a bit of MacGuffin they determine that the stone is deep underground in Paris and only the way to get to it is by venturing into the 200 miles of catacombs that are home to 6 million corpses. They hook up with some locals who are familiar with some of the tunnels, setup all the head mounted cameras and torches and then it’s time to set off into familiar found footage territory.
There are plenty of claustrophobic scenes, crawling through tight spaces over human bones. Eerie tunnels and caves too. And then they realise they’re going in circles, Blair Witch style. Weird shit starts happening – a phone keeps ringing in one of the tunnels. A piano with a broken key similar to one owned by one of the explorers when he was younger is in one of the caves. A friend who went missing 2 years ago appears and guides them through the tunnels. They go deeper and deeper underground. A child is briefly spotted in the dark. And then they discover an inscription above a tunnel that leads them to believe they are about to enter the gates of hell…
After that, it’s pretty much a constant stream of nightmares. Unsettling, intense scenes made a hundred times worse due to the claustrophobic darkness and unnatural setting. It’s pretty scary stuff and I was on the edge of my seat. I loved it.
Web developer by day, with a movie and TV watchlist that continues to grow as much as my spare time reduces! My favourite movie is Inception and, despite what everyone says, I do not have a man-crush on Tom Cruise.
