Below (2002)

JULY 21, 2020

GENRE: GHOST, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

It never got properly released in the US, but Below has had a much longer shelf life than most Dimension movies, thanks to its stacked cast of character actors who you'll recognize (seriously, there's like, two guys in the movie I can't name) and unusual development process. The WWII submarine setting never changed, but it began life as Proteus, an "alien monster" movie that was to be directed by Darren Aronofsky (who co-wrote the script with Lucas Sussman), but eventually Aronofsky handed directorial duties to David Twohy, who rewrote the script to be a straight up psychological/ghost movie. Given the two filmmakers' careers, you'd think it would be the other way around, and the Pi guy had his psychological thriller turned into a monster movie by the Pitch Black guy, right?

Perhaps the lack of a monster (or any visually appealing antagonist at all; even the enemy sub that causes a lot of their problems is only glimpsed) is why Dimension buried the movie? It's very much unlike the rest of their fare, in that it appeals to adults and has nary a Creed song on the soundtrack, but I can see how it would be hard for them to sell people on seeing it since it's kind of a weird movie. It kicks off with our American heroes picking up a few survivors from a British ship (a nice inversion of the usual horror movie approach of having the protagonists board an unknown ship and get trapped there, i.e. Death Ship, Ghost Ship, Virus), after which odd things begin happening as they try to make their way out of dangerous territory. Could it be gh-gh-gh-ghosts?

Unfortunately it's one of those movies where something really big that kicks off the plot happens offscreen, which tips off astute viewers that there's a big twist coming, and while it's a pretty good one (spoiler for 18 year old movie ahead!!!), I wish Twohy and Aronofsky (who remained on as producer) didn't tease it out as long as they did. There's only about 20 minutes left by the time they tell us what we probably already knew, that our heroes were the ones who accidentally blew up that other boat in the first place (mistaking it for a German vessel), at a point where most of the characters had already perished thanks to an off-screen gas explosion. So it's basically a Tell-Tale Heart kind of deal, with the captain (Bruce Greenwood) and the other two guys who know the truth letting their guilt get the best of them, but instead of leaning into that they try to make it seem like it's the ghosts of the dead getting some kind of revenge.

So it leaves the movie in a weird kind of middle where it's not scary enough to be a good ghost movie because the "ghosts" are just figments of their guilty consciences, and not actual vengeful spirits that can cause major havoc. But by trying to get us to think it is, it reduces how much time we can spend knowing what several main characters already know and why they're acting the way they are (not to mention they know damn well there's no "evil Nazi ghost" or whatever), so whenever it feels like it's about to really escalate, it... well, it doesn't, because it can't, really. Everything needs to have a real world explanation, limiting what can happen, and even half of that stuff occurs off-screen. And several others - like a pretty solid mirror bit - occur with no one else present, keeping tension to a minimum as well.

Luckily, with so much of the horror stuff underplayed, the movie is (perhaps inadvertently) able to succeed as a standard submarine thriller; not exactly Crimson Tide level tense, but engaging all the same. There are some terrific set-pieces throughout, such as when an enemy ship drops depth charges all around and one possible dud bounces its way across the length of the sub's (submerged) deck, or when the ship's wheel gets stuck and ultimately shatters into pieces as they try to get back on course. You can't go wrong with a "we are running out of oxygen" ticking clock, and the looming threat of the enemy ship actually produces more stress than the ghost plot - the scene where they all have to be very quiet, only for a record player to go off and tell the enemy where they are, yields the movie's best scare.

And the cast! The biggest "before they were famous" type is Zach Galifianakis (who isn't exactly "funny" but stands out as a bit of a goofy dude), but Mindhunter's Holt McCallany, and a baby faced Andrew Howard also pop up, plus Dexter Fletcher in his pre-directorial days. And then you got the guys who were already established (Greenwood, Nick Chinlund, Jason Flemyng, Scott Foley, etc) and the always welcome Olivia Williams as the film's sole female character. Oh and the lead is Matthew Davis, who was one of those handsome but uninteresting guys they were trying to push on us at the time (Urban Legends: Final Cut represent!) before he found his true calling on TV. I wouldn't say his appearance is a perk of the movie, but it does offer a kind of time capsule-y kind of appeal for a bygone era when these kind of guys would get to star in big budget theatrical releases. All VOD now, gents, even before Covid-19 (and presumably after, if there is such a thing).

I've had the DVD forever but hadn't seen the movie since like 2003 or 2004, when it came to DVD. In my memory it was a little more Session 9-esque with regards to the "ghost" stuff, so I was kind of surprised to see how not only was the horror element kind of minimal, the movie might have even been better without it. The deleted scenes have two exciting sequences that Twohy (via optional commentary) says they cut because it was putting the movie into action movie territory (I believe he specifically mentions U-571), and I couldn't help but think that it might have been easier to go the other way and cut the low-key horror stuff and just make it a straight action/suspense film, with Davis and Williams working to try to get the crew on their side as Greenwood goes to greater lengths to protect his secret, as all of them are in danger. OR they could have just filmed the alien monster script. Either way, it's a movie that held my interest, but ultimately never really kicks into high gear. Probably why the blurb on the cover just says "Suspense and horror!" instead of anything more insightful.

What say you?

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