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Below (October 29, 2002)
The year is 1943, and a United States submarine is out on duty patrolling the seas. Upon receiving a distress call, the boat picks up three survivors from a nearby wreck and welcomes them with caution. The survivors, lead by a lone woman (Olivia Williams, “Rushmore”), are shrouded in mystery as they try to integrate with the crew (including Jason Flemyng, Scott Foley, Matthew Davis and Zach Galifianakis). When a German is discovered amongst the three, the captain of the boat (Bruce Greenwood, “Thirteen Days”) kills him immediately. With that death comes a series of strange happenings on the boat, believed by many in the crew to be ghosts. When the incidents become increasingly violent, forcing the submarine to the ocean floor, the crew must race against time and battle each other to try and save themselves from death at every turn.
Haunted house movies are tough to produce. I don’t envy anyone trying to make a film that uses only the dark to scare its audience. “Below” is basically mining the same terrain that “The Sixth Sense” and “The Others” (and even last week’s “The Ring”) rode to box office glory. It forgoes gigantic CG monsters and assorted nonsense to form its evil, and I can respect that. It take real resourcefulness and guts to stay so subtle, and for the first hour, I was intrigued by what surprises “Below” had in store.
The picture was directed by David Twohy, and he is a filmmaker who has heaps of love for the sci-fi genre. His first film, “The Arrival,” was a pulpy, fun alien invasion flick that only suffered from star Charlie Sheen’s limitations. His follow up was “Pitch Black,” a film you couldn‘t pay me enough to watch again. “Black” was a mess, featuring bad actors, soft writing, and obscured special effects all clamoring for screen time. “Below” cannot maintain any sort of high quality, as it makes the same mistakes that “Pitch Black” did. The effects are never that convincing (that is when you can make them out in the grainy darkness) and the acting is frustratingly modern, shying away from the period rigidness that might have made this story go down easier. Like “The Arrival” and “Pitch Black,” “Below” is a tale that would have been better suited for the small screen, where creepouts are more effective with the intimate setting. Twohy loves his darkness, but he resorts to loud shocks on the soundtrack to get most of his scares (again, like "The Ring"), and that gets tiresome and loathsome quickly.
The story’s thinness also bothered me. This is a ghost story, but half of the film is spent explaining where the ghosts are coming from, taking long steps to spell out what’s going on in the submarine. Either you spend time with the ghosts or you sit around talking about them, you tell me what’s more exciting? Take away the scares, and you have a defective WWII submarine thriller as well. Last summer’s “K-19,” as misguided as it was, at least explored the claustrophobic tension of sub life with success. Twohy doesn’t bother. He does have the occasional shot or idea that keeps the focus back on the film, like one scene where an officer is so scared of the poltergeists, he literally runs out of the sub… while it’s a mile below the surface of the water. But little bits here and there just aren’t enough.
Co-written by celebrated filmmaker Darren Aronofsky (“Pi,” “Requiem For A Dream”), I expected more tension from “Below,” not just lukewarm frights, and a backstory that needs so much exposition, it eats up more of the running time than any other element in the picture. It simply doesn’t work hard enough.
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