23 years after it was made, Forbidden Worlds will host the UK theatrical premiere of Below (2002) from the director of Pitch Black.
Set during the Battle of the Atlantic in 1943, Below sees the American submarine U.S.S. Tiger Shark ordered to pick up survivors from a torpedoed British hospital ship, including nurse Claire Paige (Olivia Williams – The Sixth Sense, Dune: Prophecy). Once aboard the ship, the crew find themselves beset by accidents and mysterious events – is it a saboteur? The shredded nerves of the men aboard a claustrophobic submarine? Or something more supernatural?
Originally intended as a historical sci-fi thriller called Proteus to be directed by Darren Aronofsky, Below morphed over time to become a World War II ghost story penned and directed by David Twohy, who had directed the sleeper sci-fi hit Pitch Black (2000).
The film was given an extremely limited theatrical release in 2002 due to Twohy’s refusal to edit it for a PG-13 rating, and here in the UK, it never even got a theatrical release, despite being populated by a number of familiar British faces and outstanding character actors including Bruce Greenwood (Gerald’s Game), Holt McCallany (Netflix’s Mindhunter), Zach Galifianakis (The Hangover movies), Jason Flemyng (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), Scott Foley (Scream franchise), Dexter Fletcher (Band of Brothers) and Nick Chinlund (Con Air).
In the years since, the film has found an audience on subsequence DVD releases and is often cited as an ‘overlooked horror gem’.
Now, over 20 years since it was made, Forbidden Worlds Film Festival is extremely excited to give the film the big screen treatment it deserves and (technically) its UK premiere as part of their ‘Forbidden Worlds of the Deep’ line-up.
The screening will take place on Sunday 1 June at 7pm.
Forbidden Worlds Film Festival is held at Bristol Megascreen from 28 May – 1 June and is the city’s leading genre film festival dedicated to screening repertory fantasy, action, science-fiction and horror films from around the world, and celebrating the people that made them.
