A new miniseries is currently celebrating great success on Netflix, and MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes has also checked it out and had to binge-watch it, even though it’s total nonsense.
Currently, the miniseries Below is a big hit on Netflix. If you check the Netflix charts from the past weeks, it performed quite well. From October 5th to October 18th, the series was able to accumulate over 153 million watch hours, landing in over 80 countries at number 1.
As a fan of large monsters, I had to check out a series where a mysterious sea creature terrorizes a village, and the first 4 of the 6 episodes are really strong. Although it gets really silly afterwards, I can still recommend it.
An old good monster threat
The premise of Below is as classic as it is fun. A mysterious sea monster threatens a small coastal village in Newfoundland, Canada. The protagonist, Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett), has to face not only the monster but also his past and a secret that threatens his home in other ways.
Especially the first 4 episodes I liked very much. The monster is gradually built up, and a nicely eerie atmosphere is created that reminds one of old monster movies. The whole thing is paired with almost mythologically tinged music, which gives the story a certain mystique.
I particularly liked Josh Hartnett and Charlie Heaton, who portrays his son Wade Penney. Both have a somewhat sadly melancholic aura that fits wonderfully with the monster horror.
The effects are not that great, but since the monster is only shown subtly at first, it doesn’t stand out so much, and I could also easily ignore some plot holes due to the atmosphere.
Below could also wonderfully demonstrate the strength of a miniseries because one can focus on one element, but it wants too much, resulting in a lot of nonsense in the last two episodes – which I could still enjoy in some way.
Too much stuff diminishes the great potential
The last two episodes of the series show a major problem that was already hinted at in the first episodes: Below wants too much. Besides the monster, the series opens up additional plot points, some of which are only important for one episode. For example, it shows a stopover for the main character that almost resembles a shallower Lovecraft story, which is almost completely irrelevant to the plot.
Another part is unfortunately also the topic of climate change. It is mentioned but feels so out of place that it robs the important topic of its power, and I quickly just ignored it. Generally, one notices that many problems were just constructed to give the characters something to do.
This feels lame in contrast to the main character. In the end, the series turns into complete nonsense, which I managed to enjoy. This was mainly because it is so clumsy that it reminds me of silly monster movies from the past, where it is obvious: Perhaps humanity was the monster all along.
Nowadays, I can greatly appreciate this, which is why I still want to recommend Below to you – if only for a giant squid.
SPOILER: What kind of nonsense is this?
As it turns out at the end of the series, the giant monster squid is a female protecting a large ice block in which all her offspring are frozen. It also turns out that an evil company wants to exploit the chaos to mine metals beneath the village without involving the residents.
In the end, the main character even shows that the monster is quite nice, and he simply pushes the iceberg away, very much in the spirit of: Then let’s just push it somewhere else
. The squid then naturally dies and there is a happy ending with the implication that perhaps one specimen has survived – oh, and climate change causes many other floating icebergs.
Have you seen Below yet, and what current series can you recommend? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments. Another series recommendation on Netflix can be found here: 21 million views in a week: A new action series rightly dominates the Netflix charts
Your opinion is important to us!
Do you like the article? Then let us know!