I saw the first two episodes of Below at TIFF 2026. It offered an interesting premise, featured a fantastic cast, and, as someone who loves seeing Canadian stories on screen, immediately caught my attention. With two episodes included as part of the TIFF program, it offered an enticing taste of the series and left me excited to see more.
The Newfoundland setting and mysterious creature at the heart of the story were too compelling to stop watching, and the cast played off each other so well that it made for a captivating experience. I have now seen the full series, and while I stand by my early take, the story does stumble somewhat by the end. It remains solid overall, but the conclusion left me wanting a bit more, and I am not sure there is enough here for non-horror fans to become fully invested.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves here. It is worth going into what Below is all about. Set in a small coastal town in Newfoundland, Canada, the story follows Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett), a man who has lived his life on the water and, despite some childhood trauma, still makes a living the only way he knows how. With his family coming home for Come Home Year, he is excited to see each of his kids and work to pass down the family traditions. However, with ocean temperatures rising, something has made its way into the waters near his home, and it seems intent on eating anything it can find and causing mayhem in its wake.
With his three kids now together, Wade (Charlie Heaton), Jay (Rohan Campbell) and Mary (Ruby Stokes) start out simply wanting to spend some time with their father and the town. But with a new creature lurking in the water and seemingly poisoning the harbour ice, what begins as a fun visit home quickly turns into a fight for the town’s survival. With help from local marine biologist Fonda Howander (Mackenzie Davis), his sister Ruth (Willow Kean), and the rest of the town, Calvin hopes to pass down his heritage, and he will not let the government, corporations, or even a sea monster stop him.
The setup and concept of Below are solid, with the first two episodes working as an excellent introduction to the setting, characters and world. I was genuinely impressed by how well the series captured the identity of Atlantic Canada within just a few minutes on screen. Hearing that so many of the people working behind the scenes and appearing as extras were from the region made sense, and you could see there was a real love for the culture being brought to the screen.
Heading into the remaining four episodes, I was keen to see if the series could keep it all up. There is so much potential in this concept, and the cast gives it their all, but I will be honest: the final part of the series did not work for me, and it ultimately felt like wasted potential.
There are some spoilers here, but Below raises so many questions that you’ll want to know more. What is the creature? How does it contaminate the water and ice it touches? What is really going on in the town? In Episode 2, it even introduces what appears to be a hallucination of a sea hag tempting people into the water, only for the sea creature to eat the unsuspecting victim. I started wondering whether there was even more supernatural activity going on and whether we would get answers to all of these questions.
“The setup and concept of Below are solid, with the first two episodes working as an excellent introduction to the setting, characters and world.”
I should have been more careful, since Below seems very keen to tell you most of its secrets, and it is not even subtle about it. The latter half of the season is filled with a series of exposition dumps that simply tell you everything you may have wondered about. Characters go on long speeches about the creature and its past, basically answering every question you may have had about the show. It pulled me right out of the world, and I quickly felt like I was being lectured rather than allowed to experience the series for myself.
What is even worse is that the series moves away from the dark, brooding setup we saw early on and turns into what I can only describe as Free Willy if the whale were a sea monster that had already killed more than 10 people we know about, and likely many more. There are simply too many threads to tie up, and as we move into the final episode, the series spends more time trying to resolve everything than maintaining the tension that brought the audience to this point.
Even with my criticism of the pacing and how the story ends, Below still has a truly fantastic cast that makes even the weaker moments well worth watching. Josh Hartnett sells Calvin Penney and makes him feel like someone who was truly part of Atlantic Canada. The same goes for Charlie Heaton’s Wade, while the Canadian cast delivers fantastic performances that give us a taste of the Newfoundland lifestyle in a way that feels authentic and welcoming. I am not from Newfoundland, so I cannot say how accurate the accents are, but they sounded pretty close to my ears.
I also cannot get past how fantastic the tone and atmosphere of the early season are at selling the concept of Below. Hell, I would argue that 75% of the series is actually really strong, establishing the world, the horror and just how brutally violent this creature can be. Some strange elements are mixed throughout that aren’t as successful, but honestly, only the final episode feels like it drops the ball and fails to stick the landing.
In the end, that is the issue. Below starts so strong and delivers such a compelling beginning that I wanted to see it maintain that quality throughout its six-episode run. Even with the weaker ending, however, there is still a lot here to enjoy. For horror fans, the creature is menacing and dangerous, and in a creature feature like this, that is a big part of what makes it so much fun.
While the final part of the series does neuter the creature somewhat, the fear it delivers earlier is not diminished, even if it feels a little less effective in hindsight. It is far from a perfect series, but Below is strong enough to enjoy across its full run, and for horror fans, it delivers plenty of chills, blood, and mystery to keep you engaged for most of its runtime.
