Hey folks, Harry here... As I've said, as Moriarty before me (not that that means anything... he didn't even like SUPERMAN... sheesh), BELOW is a wonderfully intelligent, thrilling, atmospheric film by David Twohy. When I watched it here locally there were several folks in attendence which seemed to really love the film. Well, it's about 10 days before release and looks like Dimension has finally decided to release their One-Sheet for the poster... and I've heard rumors that a commercial was seen in a suburb somewhere around Seymour, Texas in a M-System grocery store, so it really seems they're going full steam ahead with their advertising... .... .... So um, here's the poster and another look at this spectacular genre film...
Hola all. Massawyrm here with a look at David Twohy's Below, a severely under advertised genius piece of mood driven cinema surfacing the same weekend as an entire fleet of highly anticipated similarly quiet releases. And you've got to wonder why. It would be easy to write this off as another one of those odd, quirky little films that us boys here at AICN are drooling over because it's a genre film by a director who gave us another genre film that we all dug the hell out of (Pitch Black), but that's not the case. This is really a damn fine film, a perfect film for its genre and setting, a film that showcases what David Twohy can do with tired, seemingly done to death material.
Dimension Films is pulling off their best Marcel Marceau impression promoting this film and it's got me scratching my head like a big haired woman at a flea circus. Why? Why on earth haven't we heard about this? Now Dimension has this odd nose for genre films. They've managed to acquire or produce some absolute genre classics. But then, like the Culkin parents, what children of theirs they don't ignore they instead milk and bilk for every dime they're worth until we're all sick to death of them. The Crow. The Prophesy. Highlander. Hellraiser. They've even adopted children like Halloween and Children of the Corn and beaten them to death with a stick. And finally, for the first time in years, something deftly original comes out of their camp and they act like they hope nobody will notice so they can maintain their current trifling level of mediocrity?
And this film is really good. Really. David Twohy proves once again that his greatest asset as a director is his ability to take a genre film with a fairly simple premise and with a few simple tricks make it new again, like when the genre was young. Like in Pitch Black. Looking at the film before it's release I, like many of you, thought "Oh, ANOTHER group of people are hunted and killed by a race of alien monsters on a distant planet/ship/space station. break out the flame throwers 'cuz its another bug hunt." And then I saw it and the simple things, the subtle clever ideas wowed me. Like the color of the stars. The way the light of a single blue star lit up the landscape and the characters with those wonderful hues leaving you to wonder "Why the hell has every other science fiction film only had yellow stars like ours? What's up with that?" They're concepts so simple that you wonder why no one's ever done it before and it begins to devalue all of your other favorite science fiction films as you pay attention to those slight details and chuckle. "A yellow sun? What they only come in one color?" Below has those kind of moments.
Now, while I say "seemingly done to death material", I refer to the fact that this movie hits us with a large over done genre "The haunted blank" and crossing it with my absolute favorite sub-genre (no pun intended) of all times, the WWII submariner film. Now the problem with these film classes is that A) seemingly all of the permutations for these films have been done over and over again to the point that it feels like there's nothing new to explore and B) Each genre has absolute classics that it has to contend with and seemingly can't possibly live up to. I mean really, who's going to make a better WWII submarine film than Das Boot? Nobody. Does Twohy? No. Nor does he try. Instead, he does things ole Wolfgang never did, takes us places we've never seen in this type of film, actually, literally, taking us someplace never explored in cinema before. And no, Twohy doesn't give us just one new thing to chew on, he gives us a good half dozen, expanding the Submariner genre to new, wonderful places. Places rife with terror.
Yes, this movie has it's share of scares and Twohy doesn't for a moment let his crew off easy. Not for a second. He keeps piling shit on them until the crew can do nothing but buckle under the pressure. Hydrogen, exposure, German destroyers, betrayal, madness. And that's just the tip of the iceberg. There's so much great stuff, so many pleasant surprises to this film, that it is easily recognizable as a landmark entry into the realm of period horror.
And while this film is clearly very genre specific, and uses some of the old staples to build tension, it never falls into the crack of been there, done that, nor does it fall into the trappings of the "killer twist" that post-Sixth Sense horror films have strived for. Don't get me wrong. I love the Sixth Sense and the Others. But once you've seen the twist, once you've spent an hour in a daze reeling over the ending, these movies cease to be scary and begin to be exercises in mood. With Below, we have a top notch thriller that can spook again and again, because Twohy never sells you any definitive proof, never tries to zing you. He builds this, slowly and meticulously, to a frothing boil and gives you all the payoff you need.
And then, just when you thought it couldn't get more tense, you find out that the crew can't smoke. A WWII submarine, racked and stacked with scruffy, American sailors and they're not allowed a single cigarette. Not a one. Remember I mentioned hydrogen (and yes, for all you talkbackers that commented about carbon dioxide. It's the flaw of early filtration systems. Hydrogen production. Look into it.) Imagine that all hell is breaking loose, you are possibly hours, if not minutes away from a horrible death, and if you lit up a single smoke you'd kill everybody. Now if that doesn't scare the shit out of any tar blooded American smoker, I don't know what will. I wanted to smoke for the men; I could feel their anguish, their dementia. I could feel the pack of Camels gnawing at my leg through my jeans, the box lid chewing it's way to freedom through a sea of denim to free the smokes trapped in side it. It wiggled and weaved and desperately tried com emerge from the darkness, into theatre to be lit up and smoked and enjoyed, if only to relieve the tension. But I fought it, fought it hard, and smoked half a pack for the crew after I stepped out into the warm sunlight. And I knew just how good a cigarette could taste. There's nothing scarier than denying a man smokes, I'll tell you that. Twohy sure knows how to pile on tension and scare a whole cross-section of viewers.
Below wont send you out of the theatre screaming, nor will you be able to taunt your friends about the mind blowing conclusion. What it will do is spook you, satisfy you and more than likely bring you back for a second helping. Despite the neglect it's receiving from Dimension, I will say that it's been perfectly placed. This is one of the great Halloween mood films to get you primed for the season. So tell your friends, folks. Get the word out. A great spook-fest is coming your way, a haunted house movie without the house or the silly teenagers. A smart, scary film to send shivers down your spine and make your date clutch your arm that much harder.
Massawyrm
