History Film / Below

''Below'' is a PsychologicalHorror movie with a cast of very familiar faces but not a single star, directed by David Twohy and written by Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky in 2002.

** Perhaps the most glaring to historians is that American subs operated mainly in the ''Pacific'' Ocean, not the Atlantic. The Kriegsmarine also did not use ships as U-boat tenders, for the ''exact reasion'' why the ''Tiger Shark'' was hunting them in the film: They're extremely juicy targets. Instead, they used "Milk Cow" U-boats with enlarged holds and fuel tanks to resupply other U-boats.

''Below'' is a PsychologicalHorror movie with a cast of very familiar faces but not a single star, directed by David Twohy and written by Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky in 2002. No relation to either the fantasy [[Literature/{{Below}} novel]] by Lee Gaiteri, or the 2018 {{Roguelike}} ''VideoGame/{{BELOW}}''.

''Below'' is a psychological horror movie with a cast of very familiar faces but not a single star, directed by David Twohy and written by Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky in 2002.

* AbandonShip: The Tiger Shark is ostensibly this.

%%* AssholeVictim
* AwfulTruth: [[spoiler: The former captain was killed to hide the fact that it was the ''Tiger Shark'' the sub that sank the British hospital ship because of a failed periscope ID.]]

%%* DissonantSerenity
%%* FreakOut

* GilliganCut: [[GotVolunteered When volunteers are sought]] to conduct a repair operation outside the still-submerged sub, Stumbo emphatically says "Fuck no!" Cut to Stumbo in SCUBA gear with a put-upon look on his face, getting ready to enter the airlock...

* HauntedTechnology: The record player in the ward room plays Benny Goodman at all the wrong times.

* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: A saboteur? Plain bad luck? OceanMadness? A ghost? [[spoiler: A combination of the last three.]]

* PeekABooCorpse: Captain Winters, multiple times and [[spoiler: Lieutenant Coors]].
* ShirtlessScene: And even more.

It's August 1943 and the USS ''Tiger Shark'', operating in the Atlantic ocean right after the biggest U-Boat operation in the war, is asked by a recon Catalina hydroplane to pick up three survivors (a nurse and two patients) of a British hospital ship sunk by German submarine. But for some reason morale in the sub is low and it's going to go even lower as strange accidents start conspiring against the ship's continuing survival. May be something worst than mere bad luck... Maybe even a ''malediction'' is at work.

''Below'' is a psychological horror movie with a cast of very familiar faces but not a single star, directed by David Twohy and written by Lucas Sussman and Darren Aronofsky in 2002. The movie did extremely poor numbers at the box office and had mixed, but mostly positive, reviews.

* AbandonShip: They wish...
* AnyoneCanDie

* AssholeVictim

* DissonantSerenity
* FreakOut

* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan

* MirrorScare - a very subtle and unnerving one, as a crewman notices his reflection is doing exactly what he is doing, only delayed by about half a second. [[spoiler: until he turns his back on the reflection, and he senses that the reflection is still staring at him.]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/below_5929.jpg]]

* NavalWeapons: Including the least known and least subtle anti-sub weapon of the war, the hooks.
* OceanMadness

* SubStory: Of course.

* NauticalFolklore: A woman aboard... tsk tsk.
--> "Best lookin' bad luck I ever saw!"

* [[Theatre/{{Macbeth}} The Scottish Play]]
* [[CatScare Manta Scare]]

* UsefulNotes/WorldWarII

* BrightSlap

* BloodOnTheseHands: Each of the officers involved in the AwfulTruth are shown to have blood on their hands at some point after the fact. [[spoiler: Brice is shown washing the blood off his hands after killing the German POW. Loomis smashes his hand against a glass panel in a fit of rage and cuts it.]]

* PeekABooCorpse: Captain Winters, multiple times and [[spoiler: Lieutenant Coors]]

* TwistEnding: Invoked by the crew of the Tiger Shark themselves. Hoag's explanation of all the unusual occurrences is that during the depth charge attack, their sub was actually sunk and they are [[DeadAllAlong all dead but just don't know it.]] Wally's response? "That's a good twist!"

** In addition, this WWII era submarine was shown to be have multiple decks, wide corridors, and much more interior space than any real-life submarine could have.

* GilliganCut: When volunteers are sought to conduct a repair operation outside the still-submerged sub, Stumbo emphatically says "No fucking way." Cut to Stumbo in SCUBA gear with a put-upon look on his face, getting ready to enter the airlock...

* CruelAndUnusualDeath

* GhostlyGoals

* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Most of the crew ignore the AwfulTruth.

* MirrorScare

* PeekABooCorpse