Why didn't this movie get a wide release, when some other terrible horror flicks get to go to a large number of screens? Ok... It's a small budget production, it has no big stars in the cast, but for me it deserved better marketing and distribution. Don't you think?
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Absolutely, the same thing happened to Equilibrium. I just managed to see it the night before it left and there was nothing else I wanted to see that night.
I shall call him Squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my Squishy.
Isn't that how it always happens?? I mean just about everything that is mainstream and gets alot of promotion usuaully isn't that great of a flick. It's like if you want to see a good movie you better watch something that you no nothing about and have never even heard of.
It's pretty much the same way at the video store i work at. If you want quality you pass by all the movies that we carry like 50 copies of, and go to the flicks where we only carry 1 or 2.
I actually did see it at a Cinemark theater in Dallas. I had to scour the papers to find it and I went to see an evening showing. When i got to the theater, it didn't even have the title above the door. It was sharing space with the Veggie Tales Movie during the day!
I like David Twohy as a director and really wanted to see what he would do after Pitch Black. I enjoyed this movie and do recommend it to everyone who likes supernatural thrillers.
I assume because that other gem of a oceanic horror tale "Ghost Ship" opened at nearly the same time, and Dimension probably felt Below stood no chance at the box office.
Pathetic how a competent, fairly intelligent thriller gets broomed and carbon-copy shlock gets forced down our throat by the advertising machine.
This was NOT a cheap film to make. I actually worked in the finance department of this film and it ended up costing more than US$ 80 million. The studio actually had to bring a co-producer in to cut down the costs in the midle of production(Mark Indig) Ironically, this guy was brought into "Titanic" for the same reasons. He´s a cheapstake in his personal life (saved on food by taking the snaks of the studio home, wore the same t-shirt and jeans to work every day, etc.), but I guess he is not that good in saving company money.
shareI agree that this film deserved a wider release, watching the DVD really impressed on me the quality of the production. In the commentary David Twohy seems a very competant, skillful director.
In the special features it also becomes apparent how deeply Brice and Loomis' actors were into their characters - one feature shows them doing a single shot (Brice jumps down conning tower hatch, flips switch, Loomis yells orders) over and over again and suggesting improvents each time.
Loomis' actor in particular seems to have gone out and researched submarine warfare, in the DVD mentioning Naval protocol, free assents, diving gear, and helping to explain all those little things that slip us by in the film.
A production so much superior and so much more watchable than Ghost Ship - why must good films suffer?
Alone in the Dark gets a wide release and this doesn't....why....because it had no teenagers in it, I guess....oh well, hopefully in years to come, people will discover it.
share The budget was $80 million for Below? I liked the movie, but where'd all that money go? The set was just a submarine which could have just been built in a studio and there wasn't a lot of names in the cast.
"Congratulations, Major. It appears that at last you have found yourself a real war." Ben Tyreen
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I didn't hate it. But here, the day after I saw it, I'm on IMDB trying to see if I can find out what it was supposed to be about or what happened in the story - beyond the obvious action on-screen. I'd have left the theater disappointed. I'm still unsure of what I was supposed to take away from it. Films like that, I don't recommends to friends - possibly more people had this type of reaction?
I'm not implying it was 'BAD,' just muddled, verging on the incoherent.
Either you can believe ths ship was haunted by the ex captain, or believe the guilt of those that killed him was getting to them. Or believe it was a social take on the current war in Iraq. I guess it's all up to you since the movie didnt tell you what you were supposed to take away from it.
shareWell, jjasper2, I guess the movie doesn't outright shove your nose in some message, but I didn't think it was particularly ambiguous. There is clearly AT LEAST the ghost of the captain haunting the ship, forcibly bringing it back to the scene of the sinking of the hospital ship. Whether the guilty men let their own feelings get them killed or the accidents are supernaturally caused is up in the air, I suppose, but what's clear is that no one who was not actively trying to find out how to solve the haunting problem survived.
If you want a deeper message than "ghosts need satisfaction before they'll pass on", I would suggest that doing the right thing, following a moral code, and telling the truth might be the underlying suggestions.
I read somewhere -- so this is really only as good as gossip, sorry -- that Below's release coincided with the studio's release of Ghost Ship (which I saw in the theater and is, coincidentally, my least favorite movie ever made). Anyway, I guess the studio wanted to put all their financial effort and enthusiasm behind only one ghost-at-sea thriller, and they picked the one with a lot of CG gore.
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