Netflix released the full trailer for Below on September 10. All six episodes of the limited series arrive together on October 8.
Josh Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a fisherman living in the small Newfoundland community of Snooks Arm. He is a single father of three whose life has been shaped by repeated setbacks, beginning with the mysterious death of his own father decades earlier.
Then an unidentified creature begins attacking the town.
The sea monster arrives in a community that was already under pressure
Creator Jesse McKeown is not structuring Below as a simple extended man-versus-beast fight. Calvin is already struggling to keep his family together when increasingly bizarre events begin spreading through the area.
Charlie Heaton plays his son Wade, who becomes directly caught in the mystery. Mackenzie Davis stars as visiting marine researcher Fonda Howander, who joins Calvin in trying to understand what is happening beneath the water.
McKeown has described the project as a creature feature given the space of a limited series. Six episodes allow the story to build a community around the monster, incorporating family history, local mythology and a traditional way of life that is already disappearing before anything supernatural arrives.
Newfoundland is part of the story, not a substitute for somewhere else
Below was filmed in Newfoundland, and the production repeatedly moved out onto the actual coast rather than treating the region as background photography.
Heaton has described working on the ocean with the Coast Guard, driving boats and shooting sequences in a kayak. For an actor accustomed to large practical sets on Stranger Things, the open Atlantic presented a very different kind of location work.
Hartnett approached the setting through sound as well. He listened to a Newfoundland radio station every day, paying particular attention to fishermen discussing their work while developing Calvin's regional accent.
That specificity matters because the village is meant to feel culturally rooted. Remove Newfoundland and the premise risks becoming a generic coastal monster show. Keep the landscape, dialect and fishing culture intact, and the threat begins attacking something much more particular.
The opening image tells you almost everything about the tone
The sinking house seen in the trailer originated with one of McKeown's earliest ideas for the series. A home is being relocated across the water when an unseen force drags it down.
It is both absurd and unsettling, which is exactly the combination Below appears to be chasing. Familiar objects exist inside a spectacular landscape until the environment suddenly stops behaving normally.
The enormous icebergs scattered through the footage create a similar effect. They are authentic parts of the Newfoundland setting, but they also reinforce a very useful horror principle: the thing visible above the surface is not necessarily the dangerous part.
Hartnett is playing a father before he is playing a monster fighter
Calvin is not introduced as an expert hunter or scientist. Hartnett describes him as a man worn down by tragedies and bad luck, someone who has spent years feeling cursed and increasingly disconnected from his own community.
The creature therefore attacks at the worst possible moment. Calvin has to protect Wade and the rest of his children while also finding a way to keep a frightened town from breaking apart.
Willow Kean plays Ruth Penney, Ruby Stokes is Mary Penney and Rohan Campbell plays Jay Penney. Kaleb Horn also appears as Noah.
Six episodes give a creature feature time to build the town before tearing at it
Karen Walton, Perry Chafe and Natty Zavitz are among the writers. Jamie Childs, Helen Shaver and Stephen Dunn directed episodes, with McKeown serving as showrunner and executive producer.
The format gives Below more room than a conventional monster movie to establish what is actually being threatened.
Netflix is still keeping the creature itself relatively obscured. The campaign is selling aftermath instead: damaged boats, terrified residents, impossible events and an entire house vanishing into the sea.
Below premieres October 8 on Netflix.
