Below

Below is a sometimes suspenseful and sometimes unintentionally ridiculous variation on Event Horizon that attempts to be a serious drama about guilt, responsibility and a bad conscience in its secondary storyline. As a sci-fi horror flick, it’s worse than Pitch Black, but better than Ghost Ship. (05/30/2003)

The "submarine subgenre" is not exactly a goldmine for plot themes, which is why the mixing-in of ghost plots is relatively innovative and interesting. Unfortunately, the result is more than an embarrassing mess that the director of Pitch Black and the screenwriter of Requiem for a Dream can’t be proud of. The plot, which is incredibly shallow and highly predictable, starts to get lost after a few minutes in the director's insistent attempt to shake a darkness out of every shot. The result is too much of an effort to have boogeymen under the bed, which is most evidenced by the exaggerated failure rate of the light bulbs on the vessel. It’s all killed by the breakneck ending, whose attempt to shock comes out very much as a self parody. The acting is relatively decent. Bruce Greenwood, in particular, is supremely charismatic, and Graeme Revell's soundtrack tries (unfortunately in vain) to add a bit of tension where the director forgets to. However, the incredibly cheap special effects under the sea, a lot of bullshit chatter about nothing, and the overall impression of a more expensive TV movie force me to give it a poor review. Inexcusable even by "stupid B-movie" standards. (06/18/2006)

God, a theme like that and so walled-in... what to do?! Sunken! The atmosphere of the film could be from the realm of delicacies – the confined spaces of a submarine, tens of meters of water tombstone above its head, and the steel body of the vessel is haunted... Unfortunately, Twohy's submarine amounts to backdrop cardboard without a touch of the realistic claustrophobic atmosphere that can be scarier in and of itself than all six senses of the right spiritualist. It wouldn't be worth talking about acting in such a B-movie if Twohy hadn't been trying to do some douche-like psychology, which, combined with the awkward performances of the main actors, seems ridiculous. The effects are typical B-movie fare, but they tend to improve the impression. Similar to several impressive spots (e.g., the repair of the ship's inner shell) and the sound effects. If this film had a more skillful director and the script reconciled with its own mediocrity, it could have been at least at the level of Pitch Black. Overall, barely below average. (07/11/2005)

I almost always find movies or books set in submarines scary, and there doesn’t even need to be anything scary in them. But I was curious to see what would happen when the claustrophobic environment of a metal coffin lying on the bottom of the sea would be combined with supernatural phenomena. It didn't turn out badly at all. This is a classic ghost story, whose main plot and point is guessed within the first twenty minutes (could it be that Darren Aronofsky contributed to the script with this very work?), but the post-war scenery gives it a nice touch of originality. The depth is evidenced by the not-so-familiar but well-acting cast, Twohy's skillful direction complemented by Revell's dynamic score, and a script filled with a number of memorable moments - the record-player (Benny Goodman's “Sing, Sing, Sing" in a horror film? Why not!), the depth charge rolling around the submarine (a very suspenseful scene), the hooks, the divers and the stingrays and the ship repair, the hot door and what comes next... The only detriment is the overlong runtime, which makes these (and other good) scenes a bit boring now and then. (01/21/2012)

I really like isolation horror movies and I really enjoyed this one. Twohy really has the filmmaker's craft down pat and manages to deliver over an hour and a half set practically in the confined spaces of a submarine in an entertaining and clever way. I was quite taken with the story as well. Unfortunately, the film has a few oddities that feel rather unnecessary. The quite poor special effects aside, I understand that the budget didn't have a lot of line items (still, for example, the scene with the barrel bouncing on the deck has something going for it); the strange thing is, for example, the house arrest of two characters, which takes place in such a way that we are always reminded of them just when they are somewhere else. Likewise, a few fleeting shots of some ghost are heavily extraneous, as are the all-too-traditional jump scares. Still, thanks to some of the characters and the mysterious atmosphere, I had a good time. (12/23/2009)