Sixteen Continued Screams For Halloween: Day 10 (Below)

So I'm pretty sure that I'm obligated by heritage to cover this one. I mean, Netflix's big suspenseful miniseries for the spooky season is set in and was filmed on my fucking island. This is a big deal, and it's been all the buzz out here for quite some time. It's finally dropped, and I really took my time with it. The binge model of Netflix has its issues, but I didn't go crazy with it. Maybe binging would help smooth out some of the funny wrinkles on this, but that doesn't mean I hated it. Just that it's not a perfect 10/10 banger of a show. It's good, though, and I enjoyed it. Let's talk a a bit about it. Actually, hang on, let me get into character here as a proper Newfoundlander. HOW YA GETTIN' ON, BY'S? I WANTS TO TALK ABOUT DAT DERE BELOW SHOW FROM NETFLIX, WITH BUDDY FROM TRAP IN IT, LARD JEEZ YOU SEE THE SIZE OF THAT SQUID OL' MAN? Okay let's not conduct the entire post like that, huh? That was actually quite a terrible idea.

Nevertheless, it helps me get in that Newfoundland mindset. The terror and the anxieties present in Below are haunts that have loomed over us and our little island for generations. The provincial trauma of resettlement and the abandonment of the Newfoundland outport is a major one, the inciting incident of episode 1 being the iconic image of outport men sailing their houses away from their little coves. Except where it all goes wrong and Hartnett's father and their house get sunk by a fucking sea monster. Still, this is something that's a strong memory for many old hands. My own father came from a resettled outport, and though I'd never been there I still grew up in a tiny forgotten cove dotted somewheres on the coast of the island. Resettlement anxiety is real, and the decision the folks of Snook's Arm have to take regarding whether or not to abandon their roots and try to start over in a more populated area is a real one that many have made on this island over the years, and many will likely face as the populations of the still active outports like Francois, Ramea, or Rencontre East among others dwindle. It is not, in fact, the plot of evil capitalists to drive out the baymen so they can mine for copper, but it is animated by economic concerns and it's still an anxiety that can give way to strong drama.

Being Halloween, though, we should talk about the fucking sea monster. This is another genius move the series pulls, using the familiar natural rugged beauty icon that is the iceberg and turning it into a source of horror. Icebergs draw in the tourists during the spring and summer, but what if one of them was accompanied by a gigantic fucking kraken that sank boats and pulled people from the shore to their fucking doom with its massive tentacles? At times, Below is giving real Jaws energy with a sleepy little seaside town trying to have a celebration that gets interrupted by a monster in the water that's killing people. If the show had kept to that note, it could still be a banger, but it goes way beyond. Maybe to its detriment, as you can feel at least three separate premises over the six episodes that each could make compelling drama on their own. You have the aforementioned Jaws shit, but also the ice itself has a natural contaminant in it that makes people hallucinate, crave water, and eventually have the urge to fling themselves into the ocean. Episode 5 is devoted to a family living off-grid in an abandoned outport, and they're almost Lovecraftian in that they're a bizarre cult who have come to worship the squid, calling it Mudder, expanding their minds with just a little of its toxins and willing to sacrifice people to appease it in exchange for its bounty of fish. The cod moratorium of 1992 is another Newfoundland anxiety this show toys with a bit there, by the way.

The final show it becomes is this sort of environmentally aware thing of utopic idealism, wherein Hartnett and his family save their town from an impending air strike by towing the iceberg out to sea along with the giant squid. She had her babies in the iceberg but the water is too warm for them to live, because climate change. It's a strange beat to end what was billed as a thrilling horror show, but I won't say no to a good bit of choosing love over hate. I haven't even talked about the accents yet! Hartnett's took a bit for me, as I had to let him grow on me. By the halfway point I bought him as a baymen. The actors playing his kids fare much better, given most of them are British and the fact that the Newfoundland accent is a weird offshoot of British and Irish accents, so it's easier for them to fake it. Then you've got all sorts of local Newfoundland actors who have smaller roles, like Natasha Hendstridge from Species (hey, we covered that here on the blog about a million years ago!) or three members of Codco. You likely have no idea what that is. I don't even think I watched Codco, and I'm fucking from here! Anyway, I'm sure this show will do wonders for Newfoundland tourism, and it was a wild little six episode thrill ride with lots of neat shit. 

Now when in the holy Mary mother of Jesus is Jimmy Kimmel going to get up here to go to Dildo and get screeched in already?