The Cutprice Guignol

Strap into your submarines, throw on your heavy-knit sweaters, and step into your waders: it’s time to go Below.

I am a big fan of sea-faring horror, and I think it’s a genre that’s been underrepresented in the world of horror as a whole – there’s something about the deep ocean, the isolation inherent in being out in the middle of nowhere, that comes with a very specific sense of dread. Even though great examples are few and far between, I’m always up in my proverbial genre TV lighthouse on the lookout for any horror in this sub-genre that might wash up on to the rocks, you know what I mean?

Which brings me to Below, Jesse McKeown’s new series for Netflix. Set in the small Newfoundland community of Snook’s Bay, it follows the Penney family, led by Calvin, as the reunite in their hometown – only to find that the harbour has a rather unexpected visitor, in the form of a giant, murderous squid. Which, living with this creature, I know all about.

Below’s greatest strength comes in the community of Snook’s Arm and McKeown’s superb writing and character development. It’s no secret that I love a small-town horror, but Snook’s Arm might be one of my favourite small towns to grace the screen in a long time; the Penney family are at the centre of this story, but the community feels bigger than just them. So much goes unspoken in the history between these people, but the weight of it is evident in practically every scene, from the dialogue and interpersonal relationships right down to the production design – Snook’s Arm doesn’t just feel like a collection of sets tossed together for the show, but a real place with real history. Of course, it helps that there are some excellent performances here to embody these characters – Josh Hartnett, as he always seems to in genre fiction, delivers on a very restrained performance that doesn’t lack for emotional weight as the family patriarch Calvin, and all three of his kids get a good showing, too. Charlie Heaton, finally freed from the shackles of the most annoying character on television, is downright delightful, and Rohan Campbell (fresh from the slasher performance of the decade in the Silent Night, Deadly Night remake) walks the line between charm and sleaze, while Ruby Stokes is as good here as she was in The Burning Girls, which, trust me, is high praise. Because I love competent lesbians more than anything in the world, my personal favourite character is Ruth, Calvin’s sister, who Willow Kean embodies with just the right amount of grit and wit.

McKeown drew on real-life Newfoundland communities and folklore for this story, and I think you can really feel that woven through the horror in Below. There are some distinct and striking images here, particularly the opening one, which sees a young Calvin watch his family home sink beneath the water with his father inside during an attempted relocation, and McKeown weaves in seafaring myths like the sea hag into his story with comfortable skill. The sense of isolation in Snook’s Bay makes for an appropriately desperate and hopeless backdrop, especially with the onslaught of the Great Big Fucking Squid terrorising the island. Despite this being a creature feature at a glance, the most effective and unnerving episode, for me, comes when Calvin returns to the island he grew up on and sees the remnants of the life he left behind there – it’s rich with eeriness, a community on the edge of collapse with its own tangled web of folklore and beliefs.

Which is why it’s such a shame, I think, that Below really doesn’t quite stick the landing. It’s not that the pieces of the story aren’t here, but that the short runtime – just six episodes of 30-45 minutes each, for the most part – leaves the final act feeling like a desperate scramble to put the pieces into place to allow for the climax to play out as intended. There’s a major shift in the last episode, from the squid as villain to the “capitalism was really the monster all along” – not a bad idea on paper, but the whole thing gets about twenty minutes of screentime, and it’s such an abrupt tonal move so late in the game. You’re left trying to fit it all together – which I’m not entirely convinced you can actually do, given a few plot details that seem to have gotten lost in the shuffle – and the scant runtime doesn’t do justice to the slow, atmospheric build of the first few episodes.

Despite a dodgy finale, Below is still a really solid small-town creature feature, and the setting is one that I hope McKeown comes back to in future projects, as that aspect of the show was by far the most intriguing one to me. Anyway, let me know what you thought of this series – I would love to hear you take on it in the comments….below!

(header image via IMDB)