Below is directed by David Twohy and C0-written by Lucas Sussman, Twohy and Darren Aronofsky. It stars Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Matthew Davis, Holt McCallany, Scott Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Flemyng, Nick Chinlund & Dexter Fletcher.

1943 and The USS Tiger Shark submarine is patrolling the Atlantic Ocean. After taking on board three survivors of a wreckage and a battle with a German warship, mysterious things start to happen on board the sub....

It wouldn't be the first or last time that they did it, but Dimension Films failed to support a rather good horror film in their care. Coming a few months after Harrison Ford submarine thriller K-19: The Widowmaker sank without grace, Below was barely given a release or publicity junket to give it a chance. Which considering that $40 million was given to produce it comes off as mighty strange. More so when one looks at the credentials on offer. A cast featuring fine character actors from Britain & America, directed by the man who was hot from the popular Pitch Black and a certain Darren Aronofsky involved in the writing. OK, so admittedly a haunted submarine premise on the surface doesn't sound too demanding on the cerebral front, but this is much more than an underwater spooker.

Below gets all the key ingredients right for such a genre production. It's intensively tight in claustrophobic atmosphere, creepy in narrative, adroit with the kill dispatches and crucially pays off with the big reveal. It also has some great underwater sequences to sample as the cast do justice to the smart script. True it's a little derivative of similar themed film's like The Keep, The Bunker et all, but what it lacks in freshness it more than makes up for in slick story telling. Also of note is that Twohy and his co-writers are aware enough to know that their story has to be a bit more than just another Rod Serlingesque tale. At the hour mark the characters even bring this into play with a wonderful discussion that richly subverts our expectations of where we are going with this movie.

With its metallic blue tints (Ian Wilson on cinematography) aiding the feel of submarine life, we the audience are thrust into the confines of sub life as well. This really is a film that asks us to turn off the lights, switch the phone off and invest your very being into the story. Be part of this crew and the rewards are there to be had for the ghostly movie seeker. Cast wise Greenwood is classy as usual, and Williams refuses to let her character be the token it could have been. In support it's always good to see Chinlund & Flemyng performing, while Galifianakis delivers the goods in the colourful part.

With visual smarts and a knowing sense of dread, Twohy's film is on the money. It may not be breaking new ground in the genre it sits in, but it's certainly one of the better told, and produced, of said genre stories. 7.5/10

Sci-Fi escape drama that will have you on the edge of your seat and cracking your knuckles. When a WWII submarine picks up three survivors of an incident in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean in 1943, the crew suddenly experiences mysterious doings in the confined space. It appears this boat is doomed from the start. Typical problems for a submarine movie. Pretty good acting from a diverse cast that includes: Bruce Greenwood, Matt Davis, Olivia Williams, Scott Foley and Holt McCallany. Decent enough F/X and sometimes scary story line holds your interest.

Visually the film is pretty well done. Mostly dark, but it should be dark. And the editing is nicely done too, adding to the perky pace of the thing.

The performances by Greenwood and Olivia Williams are above average, in a movie where the bar is set pretty low to begin with. Williams is especially interesting, although she's given some scenes no one could pull of respectably. She's a beautiful woman, of course, and I hope this isn't an example of the halo effect, but she gives a believable performance as well. Her face is curiously structured. Not drop-dead gorgeous but sympatico. Her looks are the sort that, with luck, could last into her middle years and lead to motherly roles.

That's about it. Too much of the acting resembles that in a TV commercial. The plot is a hash of genres that mix uneasily. The submarine as haunted house. I missed part of the middle of the film and that may account for some of my confusion, but even the end didn't seem to clarify matters.

The script is plain awful. Nobody who had anything to do with it could have been more than fifteen years old, and they must not have seen any movies from the 1940s. Poor Williams, the nurse, is taken aboard the Tiger Shark and is considered part omen and part prey. She's referred to by the sloppily dressed and coarse seamen (thank you, Wolfgang Peterson) as "a bleeder" and "a brillo pad." This is not 1940s slang for women. It is not current slang for women either. It is NOBODY'S IDEA of slang for women. (On the plus side the writers knew that a submarine was a "boat" not a "ship.") A lot of dramatic-sounding exchanges make no sense. Some of the more intense scenes reveal an almost desperate desire to keep the pitch high. Why, when he comes to the deck to stop Williams from signalling a rescue ship, does the captain sneak up behind her and thrust a pistol against her neck? It's like threatening a puppy with a sledgehammer.

The score is more irritating than anything else. Some shots are lifted almost directly from "Das Boot."

I didn't understand it and didn't care for it much. Maybe it was the problem of the excluded middle. Someone else might like it.