It’s a “Found Footage” type of production, shot in the actual catacombs of Paris. Neat! I’m in! Reviewers hated this movie, let’s see what I can get out of it. Found Footage movies are a low-budget work-around, and in my experience more than half are complete stinkers, an eighth are only mildly awful, and a dozen are fantastic.
A young archeologist is searching for the Philosopher’s Stone (because the Holy Grail would be too obvious and the Arc of the Covenant would be too 1980’s), finds a translation key etched into a statue buried in an Iranian cave moments before it gets blown up. Oddly enough, this movie was filmed a good year or so before ISIS started their campaign of blowing up artifacts and structures of cultural heritage throughout the Middle East. Lookit you, shitty movie! You can see the future!!
Now back in Paris, she figures the Philosopher’s Stone is 350 feet underground, and the best way to get there is to wander through Paris’ famous catacombs. Yay! Not sure how they got from A to B but it’s as good any to get down there and start filming. But first they need to go to a dance club and get some hire a dude named “Butterfly” to guide them.
What? I grew up an hour or so from Montreal, learned a little Fron-Saze. I can at least translate “Papillon.”
Butterfly doesn’t wanna, because he’s a little Bitch’erfly, but they convince him with the ol’ “But there’s a bunch of treasure!” No French butterfly can resist treasure!
Into the caves they go, pursued by police, past a room full of singing weirdos, squarshed through claustrophobic passages, aaaand they’re lost. Lost in a haunted passage with ringing phones and a piano that’s still in tune after being partially buried for a century. Ghost piano! Oh, and a ghost friend too, and a ghost voice on a ghost phone.
Let’s go deeper in (huh huh) into this magic tunnel and ooh! Look! Ancient stuff on the walls! And a dead guy! And some pirate treasure! Let’s go through that hole, maybe that’s the way out, oh, nope! Doorway to hell. Crap.
It’s “The Ghosty Descent” with a “Sewer Blair Witch” double-feature, marinated in Indiana Jones served with a Dante’s Inferno consommé.
Not SO so bad as far as found-footage flicks go.