Below Review: Josh Hartnett Anchors a Haunting Newfoundland Sea Monster Horror
Josh Hartnett stars alongside Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) and Mackenzie Davis (Speak No Evil) in Netflix’s atmospheric new horror series from The Umbrella Academy writer Jesse McKeown.
There is something deeply unsettling about the ocean in Below. The new Netflix miniseries begins with a remote Newfoundland community already fighting to preserve its way of life, then introduces a threat from the water that makes those struggles seem suddenly much smaller.
Created by Jesse McKeown, a writer on Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy, Below combines intimate small-town drama with creature-feature horror. The result is an unusually atmospheric series that takes its time establishing its community before allowing the monster lurking offshore to emerge as a genuine threat.
The show arrives during a particularly strong year for horror television. Netflix has already explored very different corners of the genre with the surreal horror romance of Something Very Bad is Going to Happen and the sharp horror comedy of Widow’s Bay. Below takes another route, settling into a remote coastal environment where isolation, family history, local traditions, and a growing supernatural danger all become closely intertwined.
A Community With Everything to Lose
The story takes place in Snook’s Arm, a remote Newfoundland town whose isolation has helped preserve a culture that feels distinctly its own. Thick local accents, limited public services, and a way of life closely tied to the surrounding waters give the setting an identity that is essential to the story.
At the center is Calvin Penney, played by Josh Hartnett. Calvin is a widower and father who has inherited a job harvesting ice, but he has little enthusiasm for the work or the circumstances that have left him there.
His relationship with his children provides much of the series’ emotional foundation. His son Wade, played by Charlie Heaton, helps with the family’s side business of renting out a room through Airbnb. Wade is restless, outspoken, and portrayed as having ADHD, while his relationship with his father carries a noticeable sense of co-dependence.
Calvin is also close to his sister Ruth, played by Willow Kean. Meanwhile, his other children, Mary and Jay, played by Ruby Stokes and Rohan Campbell respectively, return to Snook’s Arm for a Come Home Year, a Newfoundland tradition that encourages people who have left their hometowns to return.
That detail matters. Below is interested in what happens when a community built around shared history begins to disappear.
The threat is initially bureaucratic rather than supernatural. The Canadian government wants to resettle Snook’s Arm because maintaining public services in such a remote location has become too expensive. Each household is offered $140,000, with every individual resident receiving an additional $60,000.
Calvin is among those who refuse to leave.
The decision becomes considerably more complicated when something far more dangerous than relocation begins to emerge from the surrounding waters.
Something Is Waiting Beneath the Ice
A Portuguese trawler that has been fishing illegally disappears in the waters near the town. Not long afterward, Calvin retrieves a strange, slimy substance from the water, dismissing it as bad ice.
Marine researcher Fonda Howander, played by Mackenzie Davis, takes a closer look.
What she discovers turns the mystery into something considerably more disturbing: the material is a huge mucous membrane, apparently belonging to an enormous creature.
The series wisely holds back from immediately putting its monster on full display. The first two episodes use glimpses, sounds, reactions, and environmental details to establish the creature’s presence. The uncertainty makes the surrounding ocean feel increasingly threatening.
Fonda’s scientific perspective also gives Calvin someone with whom he can begin to make sense of what is happening. Their investigation gradually reveals that the strange events surrounding Snook’s Arm are connected to something lurking beneath the Newfoundland waters.
Netflix describes Below as a six-episode thriller, with the story centered on a mysterious sea creature terrorizing the town and a fisherman fighting to protect both his family and a community whose way of life is already disappearing.
The Landscape Is Part of the Horror
One of Below’s greatest strengths is its visual sense of place.
The Newfoundland coastline is photographed as both beautiful and threatening. The sea, ice, boats, and isolated surroundings create an environment that can feel peaceful in one moment and deeply hostile in the next.
That visual ambition is matched by a sweeping, ominous score from Mark Korven, the composer known for his work on The Witch and The Lighthouse. His music gives the series a sense of unease without overwhelming the quieter dramatic scenes.
The approach recalls other recent horror productions that have treated their settings almost as characters in their own right. Like Cape Fear and The Beauty, Below understands that atmosphere can be as important to horror as the creature itself.
The creature design is another element the series deliberately keeps under wraps early on. Rather than immediately revealing every detail, Below lets the audience wonder what exactly is moving beneath the surface.
That restraint works particularly well because the human story is compelling enough to carry the early episodes.
Small-Town Drama Meets Creature Horror
The most interesting thing about Below may be how seriously it takes Snook’s Arm as a community.
The impending government resettlement gives the residents something tangible to fight over before the supernatural threat becomes impossible to ignore. Their town is already facing the possibility of extinction, and the arrival of a sea creature turns that anxiety into a much more immediate fight for survival.
The series also benefits from the involvement of Karen Walton, the writer behind Ginger Snaps. Her presence helps give the horror a distinctly Canadian small-town character, blending community drama with body horror and creature-feature conventions.
The combination is particularly effective because the monster does not exist in isolation from the characters’ lives. The threat to Snook’s Arm becomes more frightening precisely because there is something worth protecting.
Josh Hartnett Finds the Right Role
Josh Hartnett remains one of horror’s more underrated leading men, and Below gives him a role that makes good use of both his dramatic range and screen presence.
As Calvin, he plays a father who is still carrying the trauma of losing his own father at an early age. That history gives his determination to protect his family an emotional weight beyond the immediate danger surrounding the town.
Hartnett keeps the performance grounded rather than turning Calvin into a conventional action hero. He feels like someone who belongs to the harsh environment around him, which makes the increasingly extraordinary events feel more believable.
The role also makes for an interesting companion piece to Hartnett’s previous remote-location horror film, 30 Days of Night, which placed him in an isolated Alaskan village under attack from vampires.
Charlie Heaton is equally memorable. Best known for playing Jonathan Byers in Stranger Things, Heaton takes a very different approach here. Wade is more volatile, restless, and unpredictable, giving Heaton the opportunity to play a character whose energy contrasts sharply with Hartnett’s more restrained Calvin.
His relationship with his father becomes one of the show’s most compelling character dynamics, particularly as the supernatural events begin to place additional pressure on an already complicated family.
Mackenzie Davis also brings a grounded presence to Fonda, whose marine research makes her an important link between the town and the mystery developing in the surrounding waters.
The supporting cast, including Willow Kean, Ruby Stokes, and Rohan Campbell, rounds out a family and community that give the series its emotional stakes.
A Promising Addition to This Year’s Horror Lineup
Below works best when it allows its two sides to coexist. The intimate story of a Newfoundland community facing displacement gives the creature horror genuine emotional consequences, while the monster introduces a larger sense of mystery and danger to an otherwise grounded drama.
The series has the ingredients of a strong coastal horror story: a remote community, an unforgiving landscape, an unexplained creature, family tensions, and a way of life that may already be disappearing.
At the center of it all is a strong Josh Hartnett performance. His Calvin gives Below a human anchor while the series gradually expands from a story about one struggling family into a much larger fight for the survival of Snook’s Arm.
For viewers looking for atmospheric horror with more on its mind than simply delivering scares, Below is an intriguing addition to the year’s genre television lineup. It combines the intimacy of a small-town drama with the scale and menace of a sea monster story, while keeping the Newfoundland setting firmly at the heart of both.