Below – Review

A WWII plane flies over the Atlantic Ocean, noting a signal from a capsized boat below, as someone flashes a light off of a coffee tin lid. The pilot scribbles a note that it is low on fuel, and will return with help, and then hucks it down in a metal carafe to the stranded sailors. The plane radios a patrolling U.S. naval submarine with the coordinates, which decides to head that way. This is the USS Tiger Shark, and it is August 1943.

Lieutenant Brice (Greenwood) and Lieutenant Loomis (McCallany) monitor the scene as they move in closer for rescue of the stranded British hospital ship, picking up three survivors. Then, on the horizon they note smoke plumes, and decide to submerge to avoid any German destroyer activity. Once under, they do indeed spot an enemy warship through the periscope, and it is loaded with all sorts of weaponry.

The survivors from the British ship are two men, one wounded, and a woman, which is nurse Claire Page (Williams). She is reasonably sure her ship was attacked, but details are foggy. Survivor Kingsley (Fletcher), second mate of the merchant navy, thinks a U-boat was able to sink them. They were out of north Africa, with hundreds of patients and crew, all now lost. The injured man is one of the patients.

What starts as a rescue mission begins to get a bit eerie. Not all details on the British ship sinking make sense. Ensign Douglas Odell (Davis) notes some odd factors about the attack, as well as the injured rescued man. Things remain tense as sonar contact reflects that maybe the sub has yet to shake its German pursuers. Strangely enough, enemy combatants may not wind up being the most dangerous thing in the deep dark depths.

A strong cast outshines an only okay script, but the claustrophobic setting is a decent spot for a supernatural tale of creepy happenings. As events turn stranger and stranger, how will these naval men behave? Will they keep their wits, or lose them in spats of paranoia?

Below may not be as strong of a story as it could have been, and it is a touch slow, but it has some solid ideas and is fairly well presented. With good players in virtually every role, it has a few chances to succeed and delivers some chilling moments. A decent hybrid film, check it out for another type of wartime horror.