- Directed by John Erick Dowdle
- Written by John Erick Dowdle, Drew Dowdle
- Stars Perdita Weeks, Ben Feldman, Edwin Hodge
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 33 Minutes
Synopsis
Scarlett is making a video as she looks for a clue on a lost stone tablet located in Iran. She’s not supposed to be there and risks death or jail, but she gets there without trouble. She enters an ancient underground tunnel, and almost immediately, they hear the warning alarms for the explosives that are about to detonate. She gets to the tablet with almost no time and kicks a hole through it which reveals a brass bull with more writing. She videos the thing and hopes she got all the writing as the detonation countdown begins. Boom! They get out alive, but the local man warns that her path leads to madness. Credits roll.
Scarlett starts another video, and we see that she’s an accomplished Archaeologist PhD who knows four languages. She’s talking about the Philosopher’s Stone, which is said to grant eternal life through alchemy. Her father was the foremost expert on the subject, but he recently killed himself. She explains that Nicholas Flamel was said to have found it centuries ago, and when his grave was opened, it was empty. That stone she recorded in Iran was the Rose Key, and it tells more about the Philosopher’s Stone.
She goes to find her friend George, who is able to break into places, and we meet Benji the cameraman. George agrees to help translate, but that’s all. They figure out that the tablet is talking about the Gates of Hell. It’s beneath the Catacombs of Paris. How will they get down there? They sign up for a tour group!
They find a mysterious character that tells them to meet up with a guy named Papillon who can get them into the secret tunnels. They find him at a nightclub, but he’s not convinced; she tells him there’s treasure involved, and that piques his interest. Papillon brings along Zed and Souxie to help. They explain the various dangers involved in this trip, and the cameraman gets a little freaked out. The next day, in bright sunlight, they all head down into the tunnel. George continually says he isn’t going with them, since he’s claustrophobic, but when the police arrive to arrest them all, he has to join them as they escape into the tunnels.
They wander through a bunch of corridors and run into weird people chanting in a chorus in a candlelit room. Papillon talks about La Taupe, The Mole, who knew these tunnels backwards and forwards, and he was afraid of this one tunnel, which is said to be evil. La Taupe went missing two years ago after finally going in that tunnel. They have to crawl through bones and rats while they hear that weird singing, at least until the tunnel collapses behind them. They get turned around and have no choice but to go into that forbidden tunnel.
They hear a phone ringing. Papillon explains that it’s simply impossible. Hundreds of people disappeared here when there was a collapse several years ago. Crazily, they find a piano covered in dust, and it’s exactly like the one George played as a child with his now-dead brother. Scarlett chases after the sound of the phone, but when she finds it, she also finds La Taupe, who’s been down here for years.
They find a long vertical tunnel, and they all climb down. They find some of the markings from the tablet, which reminds us that there was a reason they came down here. They solve a puzzle and find another secret tunnel, just like in Tomb Raider. Scarlett does, in fact, find a treasure room full of gold. She takes the Philosopher’s Stone, but the others go for the gold, which is a trap. Souxie is injured and La Taupe is buried. Scarlett uses the Stone on Souxie, and it immediately heals her.
They find a message above the next tunnel, “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” which is what the Gates of Hell are supposed to say. They keep looping around to places that are the same as where they’ve been, but the places are all reversed or slightly different. They find La Taupe again, and he’s definitely not dead. Or is he? He kills Souxie and then vanishes. Benji soon falls to his death in another vertical tunnel.
They keep going to the same places over and over, but they’re also still moving downwards. They couldn’t be descending through the various levels of Hell, could they? They find a burning car in a large room, and Papillon is pulled into it, which kills him next. They run into a figure in a black robe with a pointy hood and some white creatures that come right out of the walls. George is bitten, but the Philosopher’s Stone doesn’t help him. Scarlett figures out she has the wrong stone and decides to go back for the right one. She leaves Zed with the quickly-dying George.
She backtracks through a bunch of weirdness, replaces the stone, and grabs the other one. This time, she finds her dead father hanging by a rope. She hurries back to George, who heals instantly. Next, they have to take a ”leap of faith” down the longest vertical tunnel yet, but they’re OK.
By this time, their flashlights are blinking off and on as the batteries weaken. They find a manhole cover that they have to push down to open. Gravity has reversed somehow, and the manhole leads to a street in Paris; they are out. Not a twist ending. Really.
Commentary
If claustrophobia and tight places are your thing, this is your film. If it’s not your thing, then it’s even worse for you. The tunnels are very realistic and believable, and the situations they run into are all-too realistic. If you like “exploring” movies like Tomb Raider or the Indiana Jones films, this also might be for you. Except this one is full of random characters in the background that fill the film with jump scares.
Going into the tunnels in the first place seemed somewhat reasonable, and they were well-prepared, but things got out of hand quickly. A lot of it looks like found-footage shakycam, but not always. Mostly, everything is very clear, and even in the dark, you can see what’s going on.
It’s very tense, very claustrophobic, and very, very good.