Nerds That Geek Movie Review: ‘Below’

Written by Scott Edwards 

​There are some people that are meant to stay on land, while others are made for the sea. I have never been a sea faring person myself; I have been on boats numerous times in my life, but I prefer to be on the shore with solid ground under my feet. Not to say that I did not enjoy my experiences on the water, but I feel more secure knowing what is under me, there are no sharks under the mountains, at least that I know about. I will admit that being on the water is magical and it may be for many people, but I am not one of them, at least not yet.

The U.S.S. Tiger Shark is on patrol when they get word that a small group of survivors are spotted in the middle of the ocean. Although it is a day’s ride, Mr. Brice has to turn his submarine around and pick them up. Being in the middle of the war, the boat has to be careful about who sees them since the enemy is lurking in the same waters. Arriving on the scene, an enemy destroyer is spotted on the horizon and the men of the Tiger Shark must recover the survivors much faster than they would have liked. Bringing aboard three new seamen, the crew is surprised to see that one of them is a woman.

Claire was aboard a British medical ship that was sunk by the Germans with a single torpedo. Being brought aboard with one of her fellow workers and her only surviving patient, she wants to try everything to ensure their survival. But being on the submarine might not be the safest place as it is being hunted down from above by a super destroyer. At their depth, the crew of the Tiger Sharkputs everything on full stop and waits to hear what is happening above them. With everyone in the submarine being extremely quiet, the common area record player fires up, giving away their location. Hearing depth charges being dropped from above, the boat is under duress and the crew needs to find a way to get out of the area before the enemy returns.

As her patient is blamed for the record player stunt, Mr. Brice takes matters into his own hands and puts an end to the sabotage, but Claire is far from convinced that he had anything to do with it. Being confined to her quarters, Claire takes a stroll into the captain’s quarters and finds out that Mr. Brice is not the original commander of the boat. Starting to hear stories about what happened to the original captain, Claire is not sure that she should be on the boat, but the crew of the Tiger Shark is far from being in the clear. As the enemy continues to locate the submarine, it is not able to surface to recharge and vent out the carbon dioxide. As oxygen starts to run low, the crew start to believe that they might have already been killed and are trapped in purgatory, but the haunting sounds surrounding them might actually be caused by their deceased captain.

I have been putting this movie off for quite a while now since I did not know if it was a ghost story or just another WWII movie. It happens to be both, but not only is it trying to tell a ghost story, it goes a bit deeper when the truth comes out about what happened to the captain and who is actually responsible for the deaths of over seven hundred people on the medical ship. There are some good jump scares, but most of the story is a build up to a grand finale. There are several good characters in this movie and I only mentioned two in the write up, but you also have Odell, Loomis, Coors, Stumbo, Chief and Weird Wally. Everyone one of them played their part and this movie would not have played out so well if they were not all crucial characters. Stay Scared.

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