Abandon all hope, ye who enter Below. And jettison disbelief while ye be at it. A six-part supernatural thriller forged from industrial-grade bunkum, Below is set in Snook\u2019s Arm, a struggling Newfoundland fishing community beset by an ancient, unknowable evil. And plaid. And sea hags, shifty conservationists, mist, motorbikes, curses, a catch-all nostalgia for the 70s-90s, galoshes, wind and, horrifyingly, the collected works of the Waterboys. But mainly an ancient, unknowable evil (and plaid).<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s twitchy young roustabout Wade Penney (Charlie Heaton) with some combatively accented exposition. \u201cI tells ye, these waters can be deadly,\u201d he splutters, waggling his fish slice seawards as he prepares breakfast for his credulous Airbnb guests. \u201cIt\u2019s been one seafarin\u2019 tragedy after another for us.\u201d Wade is an idiot but he is not, in this instance, wrong. First there was the seafarin\u2019 tragedy of 1986, a splosh-based catastrophe that saw his family\u2019s cottage \u2013 and his disconcertingly muscular grand pappy \u2013 dragged underwater by forces unknown. Then there were the fishing bans, the decades of economic uncertainty and the resettlement programme \u2013 a looming government-led scheme that threatens the town\u2019s remaining hopes for survival. And now? \u201cJumpin\u2019 Jesus,\u201d blurts ripped paterfamilias Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett). \u201cWill ye look at dat!\u201d We look at dat. It\u2019s an iceberg. A towering wodge of inexplicable CGI menace has materialised in the harbour, bringin\u2019 with it yet more trouble for the embattled sea hunks.<\/p>\n
\u2018Muscular grand pappy\u2019 \u2026 Below on Netflix. Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n
But this is no ordinary trouble. And this is no ordinary iceberg. Indeed, this particular \u201cfloater\u201d stinks \u201cof ammonia\u201d and soon trawlermen are vanishing, bloodied body parts are bobbing ashore and something vast and vengeful is glowering up at them all from the depths of the bay. As tiny-eyed widower Calvin puts it: \u201cWhat da frig is goin\u2019 on?\u201d Simple, says doughty Dr Fonda Howander from the Ocean Science Centre down in Seal Cove. \u201cIt\u2019s not an iceberg.\u201d It is, in fact, \u201cone big frozen mucous membrane!\u201d Calvin\u2019s brow concertinas. Mucous? Deep within his ruggedly masculine skull, a long dormant synaptic connection flickers to life. \u201cYou mean,\u201d he gulps, \u201clike \u2026 snot?\u201d<\/p>\n
Fonda (Mackenzie Davis) smiles and nods pityingly. These beefy simpletons and their innocent ways! If only nature was as sympathetic as she is. Alas, nature \u2013 in the form of a massive squid unleashed via the thawing of ancient Arctic permafrost and subsequently driven to a) rubbing itself over icebergs in a desperate act of territory marking, and b) killing everyone \u2013 is a bastard. Or is it? Could the cephalopod\u2019s ire be justified? Its very existence be a heartrendin\u2019 metaphor for climate breakdown and the passivity of humankind? Possibly. But then, it\u2019s hard to tell. The eco theme is so far down in the mix as to be virtually inaudible. There are fleeting references to warming oceans and \u201csystems breaking apart\u201d but these are curiously apologetic things; faint and barely decipherable prophecies of doom burbling under the neon blare of revvin\u2019 motorbikes and references to Jaws. There is the suspicion that Below\u2019s creator, Jesse McKeown, had intended the climate stuff to be \u2026 bigger? More series-defining? That is until, one imagines, the inevitable hand landed on his shoulder and a network pep talk that included an only half-joking mention of \u201cwoke\u201d ensured this particular element sank like a CGI stone.<\/p>\n
Squid game \u2026 Mackenzie Davis as Dr Fonda Howander. Photograph: Jan Thijs\/Netflix<\/p>\n
What we get instead is an old-fashioned tale of sea monsters, isolation and plaid clad tenacity, replete with exploding viscera and goofy nods to such era-defining horrors as The Thing, The Fog and Stranger Things. It is, if you will, Widower\u2019s Bay. And very enjoyable it is too, with much cable-knit daftness re sea hags and David \u201cLord of the Rings\u201d Wenham having a whale of a time as a self-styled \u201cclimate change activist\u201d whose plans for Snook\u2019s Arm are as flagrant as his chinos.<\/p>\n
Below is hunky sea-fun that, for all its efforts to the contrary, still, quietly, #makesUthink. Come on in. The water\u2019s ridiculous.<\/p>\n
Below is on Netflix now<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Abandon all hope, ye who enter Below. And jettison disbelief while ye be at it. A six-part supernatural…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":["post-920517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}