I’ve always fancied a bit of aquatic horror ever since first watching Jaws at a formative age, so the notion of Netflix putting out a six-episode show involving some sort of water-dwelling beastie struck a particular nerve with me. While I know that yet another instance of having a burly, ocean-faring predator prey on the folks and finances of a close-knit community is hardly the most revelatory thing to come along, there’s something about shows and movies that choose to swim in the wake of Steven Spielberg’s flawless classic that I find utterly irresistible.
But by paddling in such familiar waters, can the makers of Below actually find new ground to cover, or will the atmospheric camera work and incredibly thick accents fail to mask that the show is just a reworking of a number of things based on the writings of Peter Benchley? That’s right, things. After all, the author didn’t just write about sharks you know…
While being relocated to the remote Newfoundland town of Snook’s Arm back in 1986, young Calvin Penny witnessed his father die in a freak accident when their house, that they were transporting over the water, suddenly was pulled under the surface taking the hapless patriarch with it. But while Calvin manages to spot a huge eyeball glaring at him from beneath the waves, we find that forty years later, he’s repressed such memories in favour of more modern problems. Not only are the people of the struggling Snook’s Arm voting to take a sizable payout and be relocated once more, but stubbon holdout Calvin is seeing his ice harvesting business (he fishes for smaller glaciers, essentially) flounder due to a harvest of “bad ice” that no one wants to purchase because it stinks of ammonia.
However, raising Calvin’s spirits is the fact that it’s Come Home Year, a time when relatives return to visit and joining him and his landlocked, ADHD suffering son, Wade, are youngest Mary, her boyfriend Noah and eldest son Jay who has been working on oilrigs. However, the celebration is interrupted when a gigantic iceberg, which has dislodged from somewhere else, floats into the bay which also carries that distinctive aroma of ammonia. This catches the attention of local marine biologist Fonda Howander, who starts putting together a hypothesis about what links stinky icebergs, the history of the town and a recently dislodged human leg together.
However, Wade may have something of a better idea what lurks in the waters of Snook’s Arm when a late night venture out into the bay ends up with a sunken boat, a traumatised Wade, and a captain that’s been sliced in half at the waist…
Squids in we’ve got a sea monster on our hands.
Below has the misfortune of having quite a few strikes against it before even a second of its plot has streamed. Firstly, the story of an insular, rural, town by the ocean facing both financial ruin and malevolent beasts has already been covered by the utterly fantastic Widow’s Bay, so watching something that stands to be very familiar, but bereft of that stunningly dry sense of humour, almost seems unfair. Secondly, while the Jaws connection is a given, the fact that the creature seems to be something approximating a giant squid means that we’re also sailing into the territory of Peter Benchley’s other aquatic horror novel, Beast (what can I say, Pete loved his ocean predators), so I guess the lack of originality might be another black mark against it. But finally, the main thing you’re going to have to muscle through to enjoy the pleasure of Below is the rather startling Newfoundland accents that everyone is trying so desperately maintain despite it sounding like the mush-mouth union of both Canadian and Irish.
Seriously, when Josh Hartnett first opened his mouth and that came out, it was something of a genuine shock (I didn’t watch the trailers too closely in order to preserve any surprises), but rest assured, once you’re about a third of the way through the episode, you end up getting used to it. Anyway, other than giving the Newfoundland accent a good old airing, the main thing that seems to be on Below’s radar is to mostly set the scene. We get a striking flashback that sees a floating house yanked down to the depths (don’t see that too often) and a bunch of ominous portents that suggest that something predatory has come to Snook’s Arm, but for the most part, we’re mainly here to familiarise ourselves with the Penney clan before the squid hits the fan.
But while it’s fairly standard stuff, with Hartnett’s hero carrying the usual emotional baggage of a dead father, a dead wife and the pressure of making something of his family name, a bunch of warm performances and a dedication to maintaining that attention-grabbing accent means that the introduction to the folks populating this tale carries a load of tangible texture. Ruby Stokes and Roban Campbell play the two kids who have flown the nest to build lives away from the remote town, while Stranger Things’ Charlie Heaton gets nicely noticed as the well-meaning burn-out sibling who stayed behind. Adding yet more variety to the cast is MacKenzie Davis as the marine biologist character these kind of things always need in order to deliver the necessary exposition, but the actress interestingly approaches Fonda in kind of an off-beat, kooky way, rather than some sort of one dimensional, eye candy expert.
It’s this dedication to making the characters lived-in and real that make the first episode so engrossing, but as weird-smelling icebergs show up and we get more hints that something is lurking in the area, the episode manages to deliver an attack to close out the first installment. It’s pretty gnarly one too as poor old Wade finds a drunken outing on a boat going horribly wrong when the unseen behemoth starts tugging on their lines. However, while we get the standard shots of a full-sized boat being dragged effortlessly through the water by a submerged force, it’s the punchline to the scene that really shows that Below might have sufficient guts. After getting pinned at the waist by an ever tightening chord, we cut to Calvin rowing up and discovering his plainly traumatised son terrified, clinging to a buoy and hugging onto the bisected upper-half of his friend. It’s nice to know that this is one slice of aquatic horror that isn’t going to pull it’s punches when it comes to turning the water red.
While the opening instalment of Below does a good job of offering a slight shift on very familiar story thanks to some full-on, rustic quirks, it’s still open season on whether it can find its own identity among the feeding frenzy of similar material. However, be it squid, octopi, or some sort of Lovecraftian kraken, it’s nice to have something else stalking the waves that doesn’t have teeth and a dorsal fin.
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Where to watch Below – Season 1, Episode 1: Come Home Year: