Below: Monster Thrills Anchored in a Climate Crisis

A foghorn at midnight. A man who won't leave the sea. Below opens like a whispered warning and then refuses to let you look away.

Created by Jesse McKeown and anchored by Josh Hartnett's weathered intensity, this six-episode miniseries sets its drama in the remote Newfoundland town of Snooks Arm, where strange things rise from the deep and old ways of living found along the coast are suddenly on trial. Hartnett plays Calvin Perry, a stoic, stubborn fisherman whose livelihood and family are thrust into the crosshairs of an unseen threat. Charlie Heaton appears as his son, Wade, and Mackenzie Davis rounds out the central trio as Dr. Fonda Hovander, a character whose presence brings science—and friction—into a community that has always relied on salt and superstition. Ruby Stokes turns up the human stakes as Mary Perry.

At its best, Below knows exactly what kind of show it wants to be: a lean creature feature with a human heart. The monster is real enough to alarm. The losses are real enough to hurt. And threaded through the tension is a sharper, contemporary sting—climate change and corporate encroachment make the terror feel urgent rather than merely cinematic. It’s a genre story that keeps one eye on folklore and another on headlines.

The pacing is brisk. Episodes run tight, rarely overstaying welcome. That quick tempo is a gift and a constraint. It keeps the momentum taut and the scares immediate. But it also means some of the show's deeper ideas—about cultural survival, grief, and ecological collapse—get sketched more than excavated. You get enough to care. You sometimes want more to chew on.

Visually, Below favors mood over spectacle. Fog, rusted gear, and wind-whipped harbors create an atmosphere that feels lived-in. The sound design is clever; the ocean becomes a character, its groans and churns doing much of the heavy lifting. Where other monster shows lean on CGI, this one often prefers implication: a shadow, a ripple, a suddenly empty fishing boat. That restraint helps sustain suspense.

Critics' take and scores

The critical response skews positive. On Rotten Tomatoes, Below sits at 81 percent from 32 reviews, while Metacritic reports a score of 69 from 16 critics. Those aggregates capture the split view: many praise the show's craft and thematic ambition, while some wished for bolder narrative payoffs.

RogerEbert.com gave it an 88/100, calling the miniseries not only entertaining but 'one of the most affecting television pieces of the year' thanks to its blend of thrills and urgency. The A.V. Club rated it 83/100, noting that while Below borrows familiar creature-feature beats, its distinct setting and character work give it a fresh identity. The Telegraph and Variety both landed around 80/100, with reviewers highlighting how the series stitches horror and environmental crisis into a compelling, if occasionally obvious, whole.

Other voices were more measured. Collider and The Hollywood Reporter each scored it 70/100, appreciating the show's momentum and atmosphere but pointing out that six episodes leave little room to fully explore every idea the series plants. IGN and Screen Rant landed at 50/100, arguing that the back half loses narrative focus and that some mysteries never satisfyingly resolve.

These mixed reactions make sense. Below is a show built for emotional jolts and atmospheric tension rather than airtight mystery resolution. If you want tidy answers, you may feel teased. If you want a compact, moody tale where human choices matter as much as the creature, this series often delivers.

Performance-wise, Hartnett's Calvin is the kind of weathered, resistant patriarch who makes moral compromises feel inevitable. Mackenzie Davis gives the science-minded counterpoint texture and grit. Charlie Heaton brings a generational restlessness that fuels family conflict without becoming melodrama. Together they lend the series a sense of lived consequence—people who are trying to keep a way of life alive as the world changes around them.

In short: Below is not a reinvention of the monster genre. It does, however, offer an efficient, eerie ride that ties its scares to a timely theme. You leave the show with the image of a coastline you recognize and a reminder that some threats arrive from beneath the surface—literal and otherwise. Ready to dive in?