Overview
Below is a 2002 submarine supernatural thriller film directed by David Twohy, written by Darren Aronofsky, Lucas Sussman and Twohy, and stars Bruce Greenwood, Olivia Williams, Matthew Davis, Holt McCallany, Scott Foley, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Flemyng and Dexter Fletcher. The film tells the story of a United States Navy submarine that experiences a series of supernatural events while on patrol in the Atlantic Ocean in 1943.
Initially intended as a historical sci-fi thriller, Twohy retooled the script into a horror following his success with Pitch Black. Below was shot on location in Lake Michigan for exteriors (using the World War II-era U.S. Navy submarine ) and at Pinewood Studios. It received mixed reviews.
Plot
In August 1943, the U.S. Navy submarine USS Tiger Shark patrols the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. Receiving orders to pick up survivors spotted adrift by a British PBY Catalina patrol plane, the submarine rescues three survivors – British nurse Claire Paige, and two men, one of them wounded – from British hospital ship Fort James, sunk two days earlier; one survivor blames a German U-boat he spotted on the surface just before Fort James suffered a torpedo hit. The Tiger Shark crew spots a German destroyer approaching. The submarine has several encounters with the destroyer and suffers damage from depth charges. Commanding officer Lieutenant Brice discovers the wounded survivor is actually a German prisoner-of-war, Bernhard Schillings. Believing Schillings has been making noise to betray Tiger Sharks position to the German warship, Brice confronts him, shooting Schillings dead when the German panics and grabs a scalpel to defend himself.
Brice reveals to Paige that Tiger Shark recently sank a German submarine tender, and previous commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Winters, died after surfacing to confirm the sinking. According to Brice, Winters attempted to salvage a souvenir from the flotsam with a boathook when Tiger Shark struck a submerged object, causing Winters to fall overboard and drown; Brice then assumed command.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).