Updated

Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Oct 8

Netflix Debuts 6-Episode Thriller 'Below' Set in Newfoundland's Sea-Creature Crisis

Updated

Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Oct 8

Netflix Debuts 6-Episode Thriller 'Below' Set in Newfoundland's Sea-Creature Crisis

Q: Will the deep-sea monster in Below prove more destructive than the government relocation programs threatening this coastal community's survival?

Probably not in the larger sense. In “Below,” the monster is the immediate physical threat — it sinks a house in the 1986 prologue, is linked to disappearances, and turns Snook’s Arm into a place of panic. On a scene-by-scene basis, it is clearly the most violent force in the story. But the series is framed so that the deeper, more lasting damage comes from relocation and collapse ashore. Reviews and background coverage repeatedly stress that the creature story sits on top of Newfoundland’s real history of resettlement, the decline of the fishery, and the hollowing-out of outport life. That history is not fictional: government-backed resettlement programs from the 1950s through the 1970s moved roughly 28,000 to 30,000 people and led to the abandonment of hundreds of communities. “Below” uses the monster as a thriller engine, but the relocation vote is the existential threat. If Snook’s Arm accepts the payments, the town effectively ceases to exist, regardless of whether the creature is killed or driven off. That is a more permanent form of destruction than even a deadly sea predator can deliver. The searched reviews also suggest the show’s real theme is not simply “something in the water,” but a community confronting climate strain, economic ruin and the end of a way of life. So the monster may be deadlier in the short term, but the relocation program and the forces behind it look more destructive to the community’s long-term survival.

3 articles · Updated · Hollywood Reporter · Oct 8

Six roughly 40-minute episodes make "Below" a brisk, mostly effective creature thriller, with its strongest hook rooted in a 1986 Newfoundland house-moving prologue that turns deadly.
Forty years later, Josh Hartnett plays a fisherman in Snook's Arm, where a new relocation vote needs 75% support after residents previously rejected a shutdown under a 90% threshold.
Disappearances, severed limbs and a foul iceberg drive the mystery, while Mackenzie Davis's marine zoologist becomes the main ally investigating whatever is attacking the town from the water.
Filmed in and around Newfoundland, the series gets mileage from real resettlement history, maritime decline and climate-change pressures even when the creature effects stay limited and the accents wobble.
The review calls "Below" a pleasant surprise rather than a standout horror hit, saying its ending is conclusive enough that Netflix should resist extending the limited series into a second season.