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Ruby Soriano
Professor Batty
English 113B
28 April 2015
Catacombs: ARRETE, CEST ICI LEMPIRE DE LA MORT (Stop, Here is the Empire of
Death)
Why do horror films use the same locations? What kind of feeling do they make go
through our bodies every time it is used in a movie? Most of the time it gives fear and anxiety to
one. A location that has been used, but not very often in movies are crypt/catacomb. Even though
they arent a clich setting for a movie, the. This location is scary because when entering this
location the light not reaching underground brings out the fear of darkness, fear of death and the
fear of the unknown.
A movie that explains the fears of darkness, death and the unknown is the movie As
Above, So Below, released in 2014. This movie is about an alchemy scholar named Scarlett
Marlowe, played by Perdita Weeks, who is being documented, who is trying to continue her
fathers work after he committed suicide. He was trying to discover the Philosophers Stone, A
mythical substance supposed to change any metal into gold or silver and, according to some, to
cure all diseases and prolong life indefinitely (Google). Supposedly the Philosophers Stone is
located in the famous tomb of the Alchemist Nicolas Flamel, which is located somewhere in the
catacombs where no one is allowed to go through. Scarlett gets help from a friend George (Ben
Feldman) who is reluctant to help but does anyway. Also, she gets the help from a man named
Papillion who supposedly has gone through the catacombs and knows where to go. Throughout
the whole movie they go deeper into the catacombs and basically go to their own hell from guilty

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actions from their pasts. People die throughout the movie, but at the end they finally get out
through a man hole (sewer cap).
Fear of the dark is probably one of the most common manifestations of anxiety in
childhood (Johnson). Which is very accurate because of the stories we were told, but throughout
childhood we grow out of being scared of the dark and realize that the stories arent true. Even
though the phase grows old as we grow, in the back of our minds most people are still scared of
the dark. The catacombs is a perfect example of being afraid of the dark. These tunnels are
underneath the city and because they are underneath the city light does not pass through.
According to Les Catacombs: Historie de Paris the catacombs are 20 meters (65 feet) underneath
the city streets of Paris. The fear of the dark would be evoked because when standing in the dark
imagination starts to run wild. According to Johnson,
In the darkness, one's sensory and cognitive processes and imagination operate
in a distinctive way, in comparison with the usual functioning of these
processes In darkness, a person who fears it feels weak, out of control,
unmoored and insecure (Johnson).
What Johnson is stating is that our senses, thinking processing and imagination start to work in a
way that is indescribable. The way we would use our senses and imaginations and thinking skills
would start to over power and give the power of weakness and insecurity, such as trying to
protect ourselves and trying to rationally think in serious situations. Being scared of the dark
isnt the end, usually in the dark there is no knowing if there is something known.
This space invokes fear of death for most people because nobody really wants to die; the
fear of dying is the second most common fear in human nature. We as humans dont know what

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happens when we die. Many people say different theories or beliefs of what happens when we
die; some say we go to heaven or hell, some also say that when we die, we are reincarnated, etc.
According to the article Beliefs about Life-After-Death, Psychiatric Symptomology and
Cognitive Theories of Psychopathology it states that Nearly all Christians think that union with
God, peace and tranquility, and reunion with relatives are very likely or likely to await them in
the afterlife also others believe a paradise of pleasures and delights or a pale shadowy form of
life, hardly life at all. These theories are giving us hope of living again or the thought of being
alive. The only concept about death is that we dont realize is that death is all around us. It may
not happen to us in the moment, but it happens. Death happens for a reason, some people expect
to die soon, but at times it comes when we least expect it. People die every day from natural
causes, disease, accidents, or death was done for a reason that some people could explain to
themselves. It could be tomorrow, next week, next month or next year. We do not have a clock on
our bodies to tell us how long we will live. Crypts give the fear of death because when stepping
into the land of death, there is a place in the mind somewhere that this could be us one day.
Usually, when going into a crypt, bodies are in a closed casket inside a slot to be private. Inside
this crypt, the bones are showing and are out in the open to show that these souls are dead and
gone. So, basically these souls are saying that this is going to be us, dead and nothing. Being
dead and nothing can be more powerful than what assumed because nothing can be something.
One of H.P. Lovecrafts famous quotes is The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind
is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. Being scared of the dark
and death is one part of the fear, the other is having the fear of the unknown. The fear of the
unknown is called Xenophobia. The catacombs invokes fear of the unknown because when you
are underneath in the tunnels there is no light. Even with light source that is brought under; it

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doesnt illuminate a wide range to the see farther in front. For the catacombs being a
underground cemetery and having bones from bodi