Review by C.J. Bunce
In the Newfoundland coastal village of Snooks Arm, Calvin Penney is awaiting the return of his adult children as part of the town’s homecoming. He’s a fisherman of a strange commodity–ice. But like the fishing business has dried up for locals, now so is the ice business. Oddly enough that doesn’t change when a giant iceberg floats into the harbor. But what it brings with it is a creature that throws the town into chaos. The Netflix series Below has the feel of a TV version of Jaws with the small-town characters of a Stephen King novel. Get ready for six episodes of a fascinating, unusual thriller that looks like a supernatural story. But is it?
In about the same way that the British series Vigil was a solid TV series in the spirit of The Hunt for Red October, Below is a TV version of something like Jaws 2 or Orca or The Fog. It’s not Jaws, but it knows it and doesn’t care. It’s a good blend of a lot of things coming together for an entertaining six hours. Josh Hartnett plays Penney, a hardened fisherman in the tradition of Robert Shaw’s infamous Quint in Jaws. He’s part of a fishing family that spans generations, but he lost his father in a strange incident years ago. The area has a tradition of uprooting communities and moving them to bigger towns, all under the auspices of making services more affordable and manageable. But is a local wealthy family really behind this history? While Penney’s father was moving his family in a small house literally being hauled over the sea, something pulls his father and the house under. What was it? What did young Penney see?
In present-day Snooks Arm that giant iceberg seems to have brought with it a similar beast. Station Eleven’s Mackenzie Davis is the scientist a step ahead of everyone except the local business interests–the Crockers. But there’s also another group that knows more than they’re sharing. That’s The Lord of the Rings’ David Wenham as Steve Bruner, who is not unlike Richard Dreyfuss’s character Hooper from Jaws. A little bit of a Jacques Cousteau, he knows what the creature is and has a plan for it, and brings his massive ship and cutting-edge science submarine to investigate.
It’s all a great set-up for a limited series you may find yourself re-watching. You’ll get to know Penney’s family, including Charlie Heaton as his son Wade. Wade is “on the spectrum” and the Stranger Things star really creates a believable, likeable right arm for his father. Other cast includes Rohan Campbell as Penney’s other son Jay, Ruby Stokes as daughter Mary, and Willow Kean as his sister Ruth.
The only thing viewers may need to get past is the strange speech of the locals. It’s jarring like when you first hear the accents of the characters in the movie Fargo. Do people in Newfoundland really talk like that?
The story has the hope of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home–sort of. The future in the series is left where the future stands in reality–uncertain. Waters are too warm for certain real-life creatures to survive, so the future for many sea animals is bleak. Is the iceberg that drifts into the bay random or is there something behind it? Is this supernatural or science fiction? A monster movie or something else?
The script and actors bring more authenticity to this sea tale than something like the reality based movie The Perfect Storm. And it doesn’t waste its six hours with irrelevant side journeys.
The Netflix limited series Below should appeal to fans of Stephen King shows like Haven. It doesn’t immediately look like H.P. Lovecraft, but somehow creator Jesse McKeown (The Umbrella Academy, The Sinner) stitches together genres in a way that will keep you eager to start the next episode. You won’t want to miss the limited series Below. It’s streaming now on Netflix.
