Josh Hartnett plays a local fisherman in Below, a new Netflix miniseries set in an isolated Newfoundland town where something massive lurks beneath the water. The show premieres October 8, 2026. The trailer deliberately avoids showing what the creature is, keeping both the characters and the audience in the dark.
According to Screen Rant, the approach draws on what is often called the Lovecraftian "fear of the unknown," a storytelling tradition in which the horror comes not from seeing the monster but from not knowing what it is. The show also appears to use the underwater threat as a metaphor for generational trauma, following a narrative pattern common to Lovecraftian fiction where cosmic horror is tied to deeply personal human stories.
Pure Lovecraftian horror, Screen Rant notes, often struggles to translate to screen because it can feel too abstract. Below seems to address that by layering in Jaws-style survival mechanics, grounding the supernatural threat in physical danger and action. The result, based on the trailer, is a show that sits at the intersection of cosmic dread and creature-feature tension.
That same intersection is being explored in a different key by The Devil's Mouth, a shark film currently in production. Writing about the film in Variety, director Jeff Wadlow described how he was initially reluctant to take the project on. "I said, 'I really don't want to just do a shark movie unless there's something new,'" Wadlow recalled. What changed his mind was learning the film would take place entirely in a single location: a freshwater cave in Thailand.
"Now we're talking about an intersection between the shark movie genre and the claustrophobic horror movie," he said. "I was blown away by how good it was because the character dynamics were complex and interesting. There's a really nuanced investigation of female friendship."
Kathryn Newton and Lana Condor lead the cast as Sara and Max, two best friends whose relationship fractures after they and a group of college friends become trapped in the cave with a bull shark. Gavin Casalegno, Tommi Rose and Nico Hiraga round out the ensemble. Written by Aja Gabel and Myung Joh Wesner, the script was named to the Black List back in 2019.
The physical demands of the shoot were significant. The actors spent two weeks training before filming, practicing breath holds, treading water and working with real kayaks. Wadlow told the cast upfront what to expect. "Listen, this is going to be the most physically demanding job you've ever had. Not just because of the stunt work and all the underwater work, but the fact that when you have a simple dialogue scene, you're going to be treading water," he said. Most of the cast performed their own stunts. "All the rock climbing, diving, underwater work, breath holds, getting dragged around on winches, that was all them," Wadlow said. The one exception was a sequence requiring Newton's character to jump from a 35-foot cliff into a shallow pool.
To create the illusion of an endless cave, Wadlow's team built 13 sets across two soundstages. He has called The Devil's Mouth the hardest film he has made, a notable claim given his background directing lower-budget horror for Blumhouse, including Imaginary, Fantasy Island and Truth or Dare.
Casting Newton and Condor required some convincing in a different direction. Both actors initially felt they were better suited to play the other's role. "What's funny about casting this film is both Kathryn and Lana thought they should be playing the other part," Wadlow said. He now sees the miscasting instinct as what made the film stronger, pushing both performers outside familiar territory.
Below and The Devil's Mouth arrive as part of a broader surge in aquatic horror, joining recent island-set thrillers like Apple TV's Widow's Bay and Netflix's Midnight Mass in mining isolated communities for dread. Below hits Netflix on October 8.
