Random Movie: Below (2002)

I feel that for some reason, Below has been under the radar (cute, right?) for many years since its theatrical release. I seem to recall seeing the DVD turning up at any one of my DVD acquisition attempts at Best Buy but the vagueness of the poster, the boringness of the title, and somewhat lack of A-list stars have painted the picture as just another of Dimension’s direct-to-DVD abominations, even though with co-writer Darren Aronofsky on board it has a much grander pedigree than those films that suffer similar fates.

As we meet the crew of the USS Tiger Shark, a submarine in the Atlantic during World War II, they are given orders to rescue three members of a British hospital ship even though this will take them off course. From the start, we can sense things are a bit off with the men on board, especially moreso after the introduction of a woman, Claire Page, one of the survivors they rescued. The first portion of the film plays out like any other WWII submarine movie I have seen called U571 to the point that there are mechanical troubles, enemy ships in the area, and depth charges that shake the camera and tousle the crew like nothing else.

We then learn why things are a bit strange on the boat as the acting skipper Brice tells Claire the story of how the original captain tragically died while trying to retrieve debris for a souvenir while topside. Emphasis on story. As the sub continues to be inexplicably chased by a German destroyer (I have no idea if that’s the right term but whatever), strange occurrences start happening on board as random record players go off at the worst times possible, bangs on the hull spelling out B-A-C-K in morse code, more mechanical failures, and disembodied voices are heard. The way things are presented in the film, this could either be a ghost, a saboteur, hallucinations due to high hydrogen levels, or just shitty luck for those on board.

This film is really broken down into several different elements vying for screen time between straightforward WWII sub actions, a haunting, a (possible) vengeful spirit, and paranoia. This is pretty ambitious stuff for what we can assume was a relatively low-budget affair as it premiered on less than 400 screens to bring in a total of $600 thousand at the box office. The problem is, while there are strong points to each of the above components, the way they are intertwined here leads to a bunch of things that do not make sense for the production. One thing I do not understand was the purpose of setting this up as a period piece during WWII because as I can tell, there was not too much effort into selling it as a different time period other than mentions of Nazi Germany and antiquated machinery. This may be true even for U571 as it has been quite a while since I have seen that, but none of the dialogue or mannerisms or character attributes differentiated this movie from present day times. I cannot claim to be close to an expert on what dialogue in the 1940s would have sounded like but I am pretty sure it would not sound exactly the same as today. Really, I cannot see any discernible reason for this movie to be set during WWII as I could buy all of the action and occurrences if it took place on a modern-day sub in a fictitious sea battle being waged.

I feel if the film had a bit more focus, it could have been better but the battling story elements cause a really weird shift in tone during many of the scenes. Its strongest suit is as a horror movie, which is primarily the backbone of the story in spite of everything else (confusingly though it is listed as a rather generic “thriller” under genre on Netflix). While there is a reliance on jump-scares and people appearing out of nowhere, many sequences have a delightful tension as apparitions appear quickly and investigations take place with the pale glow of a flashlight in a long, spooky hallway. Even some of the other parts with the constant unraveling of the story behind the dead captain are entertaining enough to play along with and try to guess the outcome which is in hindsight rather obvious but not in the moment.

Cast wise, there is nothing especially bad here but not much to make a mark otherwise. The movie is populated with “that guy” actors who you recognize but maybe cannot place. And also, inexplicably Zach Galifianakis is in it. I swear Bruce Greenwood plays every character the same regardless of dirtbag husband or President of the United States, as he has the same sort of almost charmingly but sleazy feel to him. Olivia Williams is good as the British nurse who incites most of the inquiry (she was the wife in Sixth Sense in case anyone else wonders). Scott Foley and Matthew Davis turn in largely similar roles to earlier films as Scream 3 and Urban Legends 2 respectively. The best was probably Holt McCallany, who I recognized from Fight Club, as the hardass on board mostly because he gets the creepiest scene in the movie and the best freakout.

There are parts of the movie that I really liked and parts that seemed to be standard fare from a variety of other movies from the various genres I have mentioned but the movie is somewhat lacking sadly. Perhaps I should have expected less from the man responsible for launching Vin Diesel‘s career.