In Below, the crew aboard the USS Tiger Shark submarine rescues three survivors of a torpedoed British hospital ship. One happens to be a woman (Olivia Williams), and her presence aboard the sub provokes an impromptu synonym contest. Everyone on board has a name for the pretty British nurse: Philly and Bleeder get one mention apiece but, curiously, no Bazonga. At least there’s an excuse for this kind of knee-jerk sexism: It’s 1940-something and the men aboard Tiger Shark are horny and taking out their frustrations against Germany.
Soon after the captain goes down without his ship, strange happenings aboard the sub lead the crew to believe that hoodoo is at work. Benny Goodman’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” is put to good use, but director David N. Twohy’s scary tricks lose their luster when Below turns out to be a water-logged version of every haunted house film you’ve ever seen. Twohy is an expert mood setter but he bum rushes some of the film’s better scenes with overeager sound cues.
When four crewmembers swim outside the submarine in order to repair a hole in its side, the scene starts promisingly enough with a surprise attack from a group of would-be sharks. Fans of Twohy’s Pitch Black will blush, though, when they see the divers jumping and jittering to Graeme Revell’s score. After a while, you may wonder what kind of movies were playing back in the ’40s given that the sub’s crew assesses their situation using Kevin Williamson’s pomo guide to the horror film, from one crewmember thinking that his mates are ghosts to another stupidly referencing the prior scene’s really “good twist.”
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