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Ruby Soriano
Professor Batty
English 113B
7 May 2015
Catacombs: ARRETE, CEST ICI LEMPIRE DE LA MORT (Stop, Here is the Empire of
Death)
Why do horror films use the same locations over and over? What kinds of feeling do they
cause to go through our bodies every time they are used in a movie? Most of the time, the setting
creates fear and anxiety in horror films. A location that has been used, but not very often, in
movies is a crypt/catacomb. Even though they arent a clich setting for a movie, this location
evokes the fear of darkness, fear of death and the fear of the unknown.
In Paris, France, underneath the streets, there are tunnels that go along through the city.
These tunnels run about 200 miles long underneath the city. In the 18th century, many bodies
were being buried, but because so many bodies were buried the smell of decomposing bodies
would linger through the city. Also, the decomposing bodies would contaminate the water and
epidemics were happening. In 1763, Louis XV banned people from being buried inside Paris.
The only problem with that is the church didnt want the cemeteries to be touched or moved but
a year of spring showers made a wall collapse and rotting bodies entered into neighborhoods in
Paris. Natasha Geiling, a writer for the Smithsonianmag website, in her article Beneath Paris
City Streets, Theres an Empire of Death Waiting for Tourists she states
So the bodies went to the tunnels, moving bones from the cemeteries five stories
underground into Paris' former quarries. Cemeteries began to be emptied in 1786,

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beginning with Les Innocents. It took the city 12 years to move all the bones
from bodies numbering between 6 and 7 millioninto the catacombs. Some of
the oldest date back as far as the Merovingian era, more than 1,200 years ago.
(1).
According to an article on The Independent Going underground: Exploring the Paris
Catacombs, the catacombs have been illegal to enter since November 2, 1955.
A movie that draws out 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 interviewed by a cameraman and journalist
named Benjy played by Edwin Hodge, 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, in the movie, 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 actions from their pasts. People die throughout the movie, but at the end some finally get
out through a man hole (sewer cap).
There are many phobias out in this world and one of those is the fear of the dark. 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 children are told, but throughout childhood the fear

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of the dark starts to grow old and realize that the stories arent true. Even though the phase of
being scared of the dark grows old as people grow, in the back of the 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 underground, light does not pass through. According
to Les Catacombs: Historie de Paris, the official website for the catacombs, 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, an
author for the Brill Online Books and Journals, he quotes in his article Phenomenological
Investigation of Fear of the Dark that,
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
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 of fears, usually in the dark there is no knowing if there is something known.
This space evokes fear of death for some 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
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

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Cognitive Theories of Psychopathology written by Kevin J. Flannelly and he states that The
ones who have a religious practice 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 give the people who believe hope of living again or the thought of being alive. The only
concept about death is that those who believe dont realize is that death is all around us. It may
not happen to us in the moment, but it happens. Death happens for many reasons; some people
expect to die soon, but at times it comes when we least expect it and is very hard to understand
why it happens. People die every day from natural causes, disease, accidents, or for a purpose. 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 evoke the fear of death because when practically stepping
into the land of death, there is a place in the mind somewhere that being dead will 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 is 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. Children were scared of
the dark the most for that reason because the stories children were told about the boogeyman and
monster under the bed or in the closet. Peoples imaginations create a simple object into a
terrifying creature. The catacombs invokes the fear of the unknown because fear of darkness and
death contribute with it. The catacombs is a very dark and a place of death. For the catacombs
being a place of burial and bones everywhere there are going to be stories of peoples spirits or

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maybe some type of creatures lurking through the tunnels. One story about a spirit lurking
through the tunnels of the catacombs is a man named Charles Axel Guillemot, the architect who
created the catacombs. It is said by cataphiles (explorers who venture into the catacombs) that
Guillemot lurks through the tunnels of the catacombs. Another story, according to Zak Bagan, a
paranormal investigator, researched that in the 15th century a group of people were attacked by a
pack of wolves, so the French were killed all the wolves that theyve seen. Therefore, a story in
the 1940s brought attention to people thinking that some of the wolves survived and live in the
catacombs. Zak Bagans interviews a man named Father Sebastian, an author, who states
A woman was going to meet her fianc for dinner and she got on an elevator and
the elevator broke. It went all the way to the basement and she got abducted. The
creatures dragged her into this cavern and she was put into a cage (Ghost
Adventures, Paris Catacombs)
These stories evoke the fear of the unknown because how do people really know if
spirits from the dead are real or this wolf monster actually does exist when most people have not
had a paranormal experience. The fear of the unknown will always be unknown because no one
knows what the unknown is.
In conclusion, fear of darkness, death and the unknown contribute together as one fear
because it has similar aspects. The catacombs is a place to visit, but with proper guidance. Not
knowing where to go will create fear and anxiety in oneself to where these fears will over power
and take control, possibly these fears will actually come true. Until actually getting a real
encounter with what goes on down into the catacombs we will never know what is unknown.

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Works Cited
Flannelly, Kevin J., Christopher G. Ellison, Kathleen Galek, and Harold G. Koenig. "BELIEFS
ABOUT LIFE-AFTER-DEATH, PSYCHIATRIC SYMPTOMOLOGY AND
COGNITIVE THEORIES OF PSYCHOPATHOLOGY." Thedivineconspiracy.org.
Journal of Psychology and Theology, 2008. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

<http%3A%2F

%2Fthedivineconspiracy.org%2F>.
Http://www.catacombes.paris.fr/. Les Catacombs: Historie De Paris, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015
Geiling, Natasha. "Beneath Paris' City Streets, There's an Empire of Death Waiting for Tourists."
Smithsonianmag.com. Smithsonian, 28 Mar. 2014. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.

<http%3A

%2F%2Fwww.smithsonianmag.com%2F>.
"Going Underground: Exploring Paris Catacombs." Independent.co.uk. The Indpendent, 30 Oct.
2010. Web. 28 Apr. 2015. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/goingunderground-exploring-the-paris-catacombs-2117011.html
Johnson, Eric. "Phenomenological Investigation of Fear of the Dark."
Booksandjournals.brillonlinecom. Brill, 1988. Web. 28 Apr. 2015.
Paris Catacombs. Ghost Adventures. Travel Channel. n.d. Television.
"Philosophers Stone." Google. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2015