The Below Netflix series, a six-episode thriller created by Jesse McKeown, debuts Thursday, October 8, and The Hollywood Reporter’s review calls it a fun pick for spooky season.

The story opens in 1986 Newfoundland, where a family hauls its entire home across a bay on a barge pushed by a small motorboat. The review says that prologue is one of the year’s best TV scenes because it feels real, giving the silly plot that follows something solid to stand on.

Set about four decades later, Josh Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a fisherman in Snook’s Arm. Fishing is mostly outlawed in the town, so locals instead collect floating ice and sell it to a local vodka company.

Snook’s Arm is a community on the verge of disappearing. Five years earlier, residents voted against taking government money to relocate. A new vote to close the town needs only 75 percent support instead of the 90 percent the old one required, and the review says it is gaining momentum. Calvin’s family may hold the deciding ballots.

Strange things start happening. A Portuguese fishing vessel vanishes, a chunk of ice comes up too oily and smelly for the vodka company to buy, a huge new iceberg appears in the harbor, and people go missing while limbs wash ashore. Marine zoologist Fonda Howander, played by Mackenzie Davis, is the only person willing to take Calvin’s concerns seriously.

Charlie Heaton plays Calvin’s son Wade, Willow Kean plays his sister Ruth, a harbormaster, and Natasha Henstridge plays a woman named Janet. The review praises Hartnett as a solidly haunted leading man during what it calls his multi-year career renaissance, and says Davis gets real wonder moments as a scientist facing creatures she had assumed were theoretical.

Is Below Actually Scary?

Not really, according to the review. The creature is mostly kept in darkness and out of frame for technical reasons, so the show lands more often as suspense, silly thrills and flashes of gore than as true horror. Its six episodes, most about 40 minutes long, move quickly and are rarely a slog.

The reviewer is also clear about the show’s limits. The creature effects are not as strong as they could be, and the critic says the money went to filming in underused parts of Newfoundland, which was the better call. The tertiary subplots, meanwhile, feel added mainly to stretch the story to series length.

The setting is a big part of the appeal. The series is filmed in and around Newfoundland, and the review notes that government-sponsored resettlements have happened there over the decades, so the show draws on real history. Even viewers unfamiliar with the province can connect with the strain of climate change on a shrinking town.

The review argues the accents, which it describes as a wild blend of Irish, Scandinavian and Canadian, are not as far off as they sound, since rural Newfoundland speech can be unusual. It judges Heaton’s bigger, more theatrical turn as fitting for a character defined by his love of hallucinogenic mushrooms and off-roading.

The comparisons come from the review too. It describes Below as a mix of Come From Away and Jaws, or a version of Widow’s Bay with a sea monster instead of a curse. It also says the show rarely reaches Jaws’ highs of terror or Widow’s Bay’s blend of scary and funny.

The soundtrack adds to the mood. Mark Korven provides the score, and an eccentric mix of songs is bookended by The Waterboys’ Fisherman’s Blues. The review says these pieces keep the six episodes moving, with solid set pieces and a few unexpected twists.

The ending is conclusive but leaves room for a second season, even though Netflix first labeled the series a limited series. The review urges the streamer to resist that idea, arguing the story would not work below the radar a second time. Still, it calls the six episodes a pleasant surprise that offers more than its surface suggests.

Quick answers

Is the Below Netflix series a horror show?
According to The Hollywood Reporter’s review, it is not really a horror series. It is a fast, occasionally suspenseful creature story with some gore and bursts of low-budget zaniness.

Who stars in Below?
The cast includes Josh Hartnett, Mackenzie Davis, Charlie Heaton, Natasha Henstridge, Willow Kean and Ruby Stokes. Hartnett plays fisherman Calvin Penney.

When does Below premiere?
The airdate listed for Below on Netflix is Thursday, October 8.

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Source: The Hollywood Reporter