occult | Lorelei By Starlight

Found footage films are pretty much hit or miss at this point. However, I have to say that I was definitely enjoyed As Above So Below. The movie didn’t appear to do too well in the theaters, and was only there for a short time, but I found quite a bit about it to like.

The focus of the film is Scarlett, a treasure hunter type, who is following up on her deceased father’s life’s work – searching for the philosopher’s stone. (Note: If they had marketed this aspect of the film when it came out, I would have headed to the theater for sure!) After finding bits and pieces of clues around the world, she eventually ends up in Paris, where she enlists the help of her estranged friend (lover?) George. George is reluctant at first – still a bit bitter about their last escapade where he was apparently left by her in a Turkish jail – but eventually can’t resist and joins up with her to search for what they hope will be pay dirt in the catacombs of Paris.

NOTE: Beware all ye who proceed further – spoilers await.

Scarlett and George find the final clue to the philosopher stone’s location hidden behind an exhibit in a museum accompanied by the Latin acronym which translates to, “Visit the earth’s interior parts; by rectification you shall find the hidden stone.” They quickly realize that they will need help locating a hidden tunnel, which is supposed to be beneath the grave of the renowned alchemist Nicholas Flamel. They collect a crew of peeps, all equipped with headlamps and cameras. and are led by self-trained guide Papillon on a search for the hidden tunnel.

And things begin to go wrong almost immediately. After climbing through a particularly large stack of femurs, they find themselves right back where they started. Tunnel entrances that Papillon has never seen before appear, as do a piano, a ringing telephone, a burning car and other things that shouldn’t possibly be there, including a former pal of Papillon’s who was thought to have died in the tunnels on a previous adventure. This mysterious addition to the group proceeds to help them find the way out by leading them deeper and deeper.

Eventually, they find a treasure chamber, and a stone that appears to have the magical capabilities rumored of the philosopher’s stone. But, of course, like all treasure chambers, there is a trap. The way out is closed to them. It is in this room that Scarlett encounters an painting on the wall, which indicates the alchemical principle of “as it is above, so it is below, as it is within, so it is without.” They are forced to continue further into the catacombs, descending ever deeper.

There are several comparisons to the hellish descent in Dante’s Inferno, and things really begin to get scary when they are forced to enter a small, crawlspace below the inscription, “Abandon all hope ye who enter here.” On the other side, they encounter a room the mirror image of the one they just left with the same painting reversed and at this point the trip gets even creepier. Demonic creatures lurk in the shadows, people are hurt and killed, horrible secrets from their consciences come back to haunt them, and it becomes increasingly clear that they are progressing through a horrific mirror image of their journey as each cavern they enter is an oppositely oriented duplicate of the ones they previously explored.

The key to the movie is the fact that they must “rectify” themselves in order to find the stone. And, eventually Scarlett catches on to this. I won’t give away the ending, but it is definitely interesting. Between the treasure hunting aspect, alchemy references, Dante, and the catacombs themselves, this was a movie designed to hook me. If you are into the same type of things, you should definitely check this one out!

I absolutely love Laird Barron‘s work, and have previously written on him. Recently I read The Light Is the Darkness and was completely blown away again.

Conrad Navarro is a trained fighter for the Pageant, a series of brutal events staged in secret for an elite group of rich creeps. Conrad is also searching for his sister, Imogene, who disappeared during her own search for the mysterious, and nefarious, Dr. Drake, whose unorthodox scientific experiments are believed by both siblings to have caused the death of their brother when they were children. The book is set in the weird version of a noir underground. Power plays pull Conrad back and forth between warring factions, and the characters spend most of their time entrenched within corruptive practices of one type or another. The weird infringes throughout, whether it is the odd set of physical attributes that Conrad seems to have been born with, or, in a more overt appearance, an otherworldly erotic close encounter with something in the other room.

Barron’s writing is sparse and minimalist when needed, both capturing the brutal feel of this character and his world, and then expanding just enough when needed to bring in a dark beauty for the descriptions. This work has some extremely beautiful dark prose that hits hard whether it describes a nightmarish landscape just the other side of this dimension

The moon shrieked below the threshold of human perception, reverberated in vast stygian chambers of rock and bone.

or the dream land someone like Conrad visits in his sleep

This bestial presence hunched until its crown of antlers scraped rock, and it chuckled and growled and reached for him, clutched him and drew him into the light.

or the beginning of one of the many, bloody and gruesome fights

The slow waltz in Hell began without music.

This book unfolds almost like a classic detective story, with Conrad continuing to search for his sister while being continually sidetracked by the competing factions in his world. However, his search for her, for answers, and for the man that may have ruined his life comes to a much more dramatic conclusion, as dark unimaginable forces begin to come into play, and Conrad himself begins to change.

If for some reason you have not yet read any of Barron’s work, you absolutely should stop whatever you are doing right now and go find some.