Below Netflix – Netflix’s new six-part thriller Below uses the real-world history of Newfoundland to ground a high-stakes story of a town fighting for survival against an encroaching sea beast.
The prologue to Netflix’s new six-episode thriller *Below* opens in 1986. and it remains one of the most effective sequences of the year. A family in Newfoundland is uprooting their entire life. hauling their home across the bay atop a barge steered by a single motorboat. It is a haunting. potent image that succeeds because it is rooted in historical reality: for decades. Newfoundland has seen government-sponsored resettlements due to industrial and population shifts. When a massive. submerged force eventually tears that house apart. the shock isn’t just in the violence—it is in how the show uses a grounded. lived-in tragedy to launch an otherwise outlandish creature feature.
Created by Jesse McKeown, the series arrives on Netflix Thursday, October 8. It stars Josh Hartnett as Calvin Penney, a fisherman in the struggling community of Snook’s Arm. Fishing has been largely outlawed, forcing residents to pivot to harvesting chunks of floating ice for a local vodka company. The town is suffocating; five years prior. a population vote failed to meet the 90 percent threshold required to accept government relocation checks. Now, a new vote looms with a 75 percent requirement, and the pressure is fracturing families. Calvin and his sister. harbormaster Ruth (Willow Kean). along with his son Wade (Charlie Heaton). find themselves at the center of a town deciding whether it still has a future.
As the community prepares for an annual reunion weekend, the local waters turn deadly. A Portuguese fishing vessel vanishes. a foul-smelling. oily chunk of ice turns up in the harbor. and human limbs begin washing ashore. The only person taking the signs seriously is Fonda Howander (Mackenzie Davis). a marine zoologist working from a nearby facility who soon realizes that something massive is hunting in the bay. She finds herself playing the role of Hooper to Hartnett’s Brody. with David Wenham’s gregarious Steve eventually rounding out the *Jaws*-inspired trio as a local take on Quint. Natasha Henstridge also features as Janet, a character whose significance only emerges as the mystery deepens.
There is a peculiar tension between the show’s ambitions and its limitations. While the production makes excellent use of Newfoundland filming locations, it frequently leans on CG icebergs and wildly inconsistent accents. Hartnett and Heaton play father and son with a committed. brooding intensity that survives the distraction of their questionable dialects. while Davis manages to ground the more jargon-heavy scientific exposition. Meanwhile. the arrival of Calvin’s children. Mary (Ruby Stokes) and Jay (Rohan Campbell). highlights a strange generational math: a 48-year-old Hartnett fathering three twenty-something adults is plausible. though the rapid loss of their regional accents compared to their father’s remains a curiosity.
*Below* occupies a strange space between horror and family drama. elevated by Mark Korven’s score and a soundtrack anchored by The Waterboys’ “Fisherman’s Blues.” It isn’t a parody. nor is it a terrifying creature-feature in the vein of a summer blockbuster; the monster is often kept in the shadows. revealing itself through flashes of gore and oversized appendages that suggest a budget prioritized toward location shooting over digital effects.
Ultimately. the series functions best as a story about a town already disappearing. now forced to reckon with an external threat that mirrors its own internal decay. It reaches a conclusion that feels definitive, even as it leaves the door slightly ajar for a potential second season. Netflix has branded this a limited series. and that feels like the correct call; the show manages a singular. atmospheric feat. but it is a balance that would be difficult to strike twice.
Below Netflix Josh Hartnett Mackenzie Davis Charlie Heaton Newfoundland thriller TV review