Plot: Calvin Penney is a big‑hearted but stubborn fisherman living in a small Newfoundland town, who’s still haunted by his father’s mysterious death from decades ago. When an unidentified sea creature begins terrorizing his hometown, Calvin must fight to hold his close-knit community together. Determined to keep his son Wade and the rest of his family safe, he teams up with a visiting marine researcher to confront the creature and reveal the island’s buried secrets before it’s too late. Blending local myth, thrilling suspense, and heartfelt humour, this twisty six-part limited series dives into themes of family, community, and change – both terrifying and inevitable.
Review: Below is an interesting series to review because, on one hand, it’s the latest in Josh Hartnett’s string of comeback features, including Trapped, Oppenheimer, and Verity. On the other hand, it is released in the shadow of Apple TV’s massively acclaimed Widows Bay, which transformed the small, quaint seaside village troubled by horrific entities into the new subgenre de jour. Below, set in a small town in Canada, contending with a monstrous entity from the deep sea, works well enough, with a six-episode limited run, but pales in comparison to countless other folk horror and mystery series released over the last several years. Despite a promising concept and solid performances from Hartnett, Charlie Heaton, and Mackenzie Davis, Below really just sinks into the depths.
Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a Newfoundland native who, in a flashback to 1986, must save his family by cutting loose his father and leaving him to die. Decades later, Calvin is a fisherman and a widower raising his children on his own in the town of Snook’s Arm. There is his older son, Wade, played by Charlie Heaton, and his other children, Mary (Ruby Stokes) and Jay (Rohan Campbell), who return for a celebration known as Come Home Year, where former residents of the small island come back to see their families Calvin works hard where he chips ice from a bizarre iceberg that floated into their little community, which is used to make vodka at a local distillery. When the ice is rejected because of some weird element that makes it smell and taste funny, Calvin takes it to Dr. Fonda Howlander, played by Mackenzie Davis. That leads eventually to Wade having a drug-induced accident and other residents in town beginning to act strangely, leading Calvin to suspect that there may be something wrong with the water.
Not to spoil what the big surprise is, but it’s clearly a sea monster, and the kind of monster it is factors into the plot. Like a Great White North version of Jaws, the reveal tries to be a slow burn, giving us a lot of theories as to whether this is a supernatural entity or whether this is really a parable about climate change. Below ends up being a little bit of both. At its core, this is a story that pits a community against itself: from the powerful local family, the Crockers, who run pretty much everything with an iron fist, to the Penneys, who are struggling to make ends meet like many residents in their town. As each episode progresses, we have Calvin whining about whether his family is enduring a long-standing curse, blaming himself frequently for the events of his childhood and the death of his father. All of the characters from every end of this ensemble spend their time upset about circumstances both professionally and personally, which adds to the melodrama of the story, but ultimately circles back to the monster (both figuratively and literally) that is challenging their homes.
The entire cast of Below is comprised of Canadians and English actors, aside from Josh Hartnett. Hartnett tries his hardest to affect a Newfoundland accent but ends up sounding like a reject from Gangs of New York. The main cast is good, and Josh Hartnett does a solid job in the lead role, but the series struggles with the ridiculousness of the premise itself. When the story focuses on the community’s struggle, it works well with Charlie Heaton playing a troubled young man, his signature, well and Mary Walsh and Natasha Henstridge standing out in solid supporting roles. Mackenzie Davis plays Fonda Howander with her trademark frazzled intensity, which is also a strange blend of sexy and nerdy. Widows Bay, being released just a few months ago, makes it very difficult for this series to stand out, as does Mike Flanagan’s Midnight Mass, which also presented a rounded portrait of a seaside community on edge.
Creator and showrunner Jesse McKeown, known for Letterkenney and The Umbrella Academy, roots Below deeply in its Canadian setting, but the series is easily consumed by global audiences. The climate-change side of the story is not subtle in the least, but that is okay since the special effects are not either. The CGI is definitely dodgy in places, which does pull you out of the plot somewhat since even casual YouTube creators can forge impressive visuals. Below suffers the most when the monster and the iceberg are on screen, but everything set in Snook’s Arm works well. Directors Jamie Childs, Helen Shaver, and Stephen Dunn build each of the six chapters of Below into a taut story, but no one can really figure out how to blend it with the bigger messages McKeown is trying to convey. Once the military comes to town, Below goes almost completely off the rails.
Below could have been a really great series, but it ends up being bland. Unable to combine small-town melodrama with big-C monster energy, Below turns out similar to Netflix’s recent genre misfire, The Last House, which also tried to combine family drama with climate-change monsters. Below does not overstay its welcome, but somehow still lingers too long. I had high hopes, and Josh Hartnett is the standout in this series, but overall, this show just sinks rather than swims. As Netflix continues to try and find their next Stranger Things, there will be many misfires and you can count this series among them.
Below is now streaming on Netflix.
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