Review of Below

Below (2002)
4/10
Seen It All Before
6 January 2005
I've never understood the cross genre concept of mixing a horror movie into a war film . I did like THE KEEP mainly due to the art house flourishes ( One of the things people detested about Michael Mann's adaptation ) but have so far missed out on seeing THE BUNKER and DEATHWATCH . I guess the appeal to film makers is that it's easy to kick start a story of having a bunch of soldiers turn up at a deserted locale where they find a demonic force trying to kill them one by one which isn't a million miles away from the plot of say PREDATOR or DOG SOLDIERS . But when you stop to consider the horrors of war do we need supernatural elements to horrify an audience ?

BELOW is somewhat different from the films mentioned above because it does somewhat lack a sense of time and space . The American submarine where the story is set could easily have been set on a spaceship in the future and to be honest the movie does feel very similar to EVENT HORIZON . There's little gore involved from director David Twohey which is a both a good and bad thing since he doesn't use the gimmick of explict violence to shock the audience but makes the film a bit too talky for its own good

BELOW can probably be summed up in thus - If you liked EVENT HORIZON you will like BELOW . If you thought DAS BOOT was terrifying without any supernatural elements you probably won't like BELOW
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