Fear Below is a suspenseful, well acted and directed little thriller of the old-school variety. It tells the story of a team of professional divers in 1940s Australia, who are hired by a bunch of villains to locate a sunken car containing gold bullion. Their efforts are made considerably less easy by the unwelcome presence of a particularly deadly bull shark hunting in the waters. It doesn’t help when the ruthlessness of the criminals quickly becomes apparent, and the divers find themselves battling evil from above and beneath the waves.
The leading diver, Clara Bennett, is delightfully played by Hermione Corfield – previously seen in the superb BBC thriller series We Hunt Together a couple of years back – who imbues her character with a rare blend of gentility and toughness. Aborigine actor Jacob Junior Nayinggul also impresses as her sidekick Jimmy, and the bad guys are well portrayed too.
Director Matthew Holmes, also one of the writers, has a good sense of pace and composition and is a name worth looking out for in the future. Fear Below could easily be overlooked on the DVD shelves by casual browsers as yet another two-bit shark movie, but it deserves recognition as something quite different from the norm.
Fear Below is available now on DVD and digital platforms.
