Charlie Heaton plays Wade in Below.Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix
Below is above-average as far as Netflix TV thrillers go.
Creator Jesse McKeown’s Newfoundland-set monster miniseries may end in a mishmash as most such streaming shows do. But it starts exceptionally strong and never fully wears out its welcome.
The opening scene is an instant Canadian classic.
Forty years in the past, young Newfoundlander Calvin Penney, his sister Ruth and his parents are moving from a tiny coastal town, their motor boat slowly towing their house across a misty bay.
Azriel Dalman as Young Calvin, Kamryn Pliva as Young Ruth, and Rhiannon Morgan in the first epiosde of the miniseries.Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix
This is a haunting image Canadians might recognize from documentary footage or photographs of the controversial outport resettlements from the 1950s to the 1970s. But then McKeown finds a way to make the scenario darker – for true history to meet horror.
There’s a sound that comes from inside the floating home and Cal’s father goes in to check it out. If you’ve ever seen a movie, you know that’s a bad idea.
Below then leaps to the present day with middle-aged Cal played by American actor Josh Hartnett.
He’s now a widowed ice harvester living in a fictionalized version of Snook’s Arm, which is holding a referendum during which residents must decide whether to voluntarily move once more.
That vote’s taking place during a Come Home celebration – so Cal’s young-adult kids are all there, representing the different choices a young person living in a small down-on-its-luck town during a cod moratorium might make.
Josh Hartnett stars as Calvin as an adult; Ruby Stokes plays Mary, his daughter who returns to Newfoundland with a boyfriend from Montreal.Courtesy of Netflix/Netflix
Wade (English actor Charlie Heaton, of Stranger Things fame) has never left; it’s hard to tell if his ne’er-do-well reputation comes fairly or is part of the stigma of staying.
Then, there’s Jay (Rohan Campbell), pride of the family, off making a ton of money in Fort Mac; his not-so-smart financial choices will soon come to the surface.
Cal’s sole daughter Mary (Ruby Stokes), meanwhile, has returned with a serious boyfriend from Montreal – and a decision to make about returning home or living permanently as part of the diaspora.
Soon enough, however, a mysterious contaminated iceberg comes to resettle in Snook’s Arm’s harbour – and the non-fantastical family and community drama is put on hold.
A creature starts wreaking havoc in the sea and by the shore. Townspeople who drink their rum and Pepsis with ice start hallucinating and being tormented by thirst.
A research scientist named Fonda (B.C.’s Mackenzie Davis, Station Eleven) tries to get to the bottom of all this – though the character’s role in the plot is never all that clearly defined. Davis is adrift in the part.
Mackenzie Davis as research scientist Fonda Lee.Jan Thijs/Netflix
Unlike many multipart TV thrillers that should have been movies, however, Below is structured with each of its six episodes having an arc of its own.
Each also takes on a different horror convention (or cliché) as the overall plot moves forward, with nods to Jaws, or The Fog, or The Abyss.
In this, Below will draw comparisons to that other, more comedic horror show about a widower living on a bay on Apple TV.
There’s an installment that focuses on local folklore about the Old Hag, another that teases the possibility of a zombie outbreak, and another almost all at-sea episode focused on a mysterious ship full of foreigners tracking the monster.
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Underneath the scary seaside tropes, however, Below is emotionally and thematically anchored by an exploration of the idea of resettlement.
The specific context of Newfoundland relocation is imbued with universal resonance, perhaps most terrifyingly in the implication that climate change could turn any of us into that family towing a house across water.
The Penney family’s wrestling with the pros and cons of staying or leaving a small community, and the need for change no matter the choice, will also be widely relatable.
The fact that the three main leads – Cal, Wade and Fonda – are played an American, a Brit and a Canadian with a very West Coast vibe putting on bayman accents to various degrees of success doesn’t seem to bother Newfoundlanders. So, I’ll say nothing, saw wood.
In any case, there are some fine performances by Newfoundlanders in it as well. Willow Kean as Cal’s harbourmaster sister Ruth is the heart of the show, while Joel Thomas Hynes gives a memorably mad turn as a rival of Cal’s.
There’s a CODCO reunion of sorts, too, with Mary Walsh playing the mayor of the town, Cathy Jones playing an old Coronation Street-watching crone, and Andy Jones in a part that I can’t describe without a spoiler.
Shawn Doyle is great, too, in the fifth episode – my favourite in terms of taking a familiar fantasy and putting in a unique Newfoundland context.
Below’s ending is superbly cheesy with some lines of dialogue you have to laugh at. But, at its best, it is Michael Crichton meets Michael Crummey – and, at its worst, it’s still not crummy.