BELOW (2002)

A NEAT POSTER, IMHO

This is a great little sci-fi/horror submariner flick. It seems to have been basically forgotten, but it has tremendous atmosphere, some good jump scares, some GREAT scare scares, and the time tested acting skills of none other than Bruce Greenwood and Olivia Williams. I'm a RIDDICK fan and so it's neat to see an early directing and writing effort from Mr Twohy. When you think about it, submarines (and to a lesser extent, regular ships) are a great setting for a horror film and it's odd that this film is the only one to really explore the possibilities. The period setting adds quite a bit too, I think


By the way, the mirror scare is in my opinion one of the most terrifying moments in *any* film. I actually watched this movie in 09 but noticed there wasn't a thread for it and I think it deserves more attention


PS I was checking on IMDB, and it looks like Zach Galifianakis plays a character called "Weird Wally" lol

EDIT: "U-571 meets POLTERGEIST!" is such a lazy pull quote. You're basically just saying "Like another movie about a submarine, but with ghosts!"


EDIT 2: Though I guess the other quote on the poster ("Suspense and Horror!") is even lazier. It's like they looked up the movie on IMDB and saw what themes were tagged, and then added an exclamation point.

In a way, Twohy seems kind of like a slightly less reliable Neil Marshall. Needless to say, I'm a fan. He makes movies about interesting subjects, at least, which is more than you can say for most people in film these days. And you are right about the script, I knew it Aronofsky who wrote it when I saw the film, but then I promptly forgot that fact! Good for you to point it out.
Was Holt McCallany the guy who had the mirror confrontation? Because that is one of the scariest things I've seen on film to date. Freaks me out just thinking about it. It's on NETFLIX INSTANT BTW, in case you wanted to 'dive' right into that rewatch (no pun intended!)

EDIT: I think it's kind of hilarious and awesome how readily Ms Williams embraces the idea that the ship is being menaced by ghosts. She doesn't waste any time in calling that one.