If Jaws left you scared of the sea, wait until you see this boat-crunching squid: ROLAND WHITE reviews Netflix's Below

Below (Netflix)

Rating: Four out of five stars 

Rating:

If Prime Minister Andy Burnham really wants to take us back to the 1970s, he’ll be delighted to learn that television is already doing its bit.

Amazon Prime Video started streaming a miniseries of Carrie this week, and Netflix last night offered what is essentially Jaws — with a boat-crunching, man-eating giant squid instead of a killer shark.

The next thing you know, they’ll be updating Multi-Coloured Swap Shop and streaming a radical remake of It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum.

The great white shark of Jaws was sporting enough to wait for people to take a dip before it ate them.

The sea creature of Below — of which we catch only a fleeting underwater glimpse in the first episodes — will grab you if you so much as stand by the water to admire the view.

And there is plenty of view to admire. Below was filmed in the fishing village of Snook’s Arm on Newfoundland, which is a bit like Northern Exposure’s Cicely, Alaska, but with more sea and slightly less to do.

There was barely time to settle comfortably on the sofa before the killer squid claimed its first victim. 

The action opened in 1986 with the Penney family in a small wooden boat, making their way across an expanse of water and towing their home behind them. They were being resettled to Snook’s Arm.

Suddenly, the house snagged on something. Father Leo hopped from the boat to the house to see what might be wrong. Very bad idea.

What happened next would haunt Leo’s young son Calvin for the rest of his life. Especially the bit where he gazed over the side and spotted something vaguely threatening under the water.

He couldn’t make out what it is, and neither could we. Forty years later, Calvin (Josh Hartnett) has his own fishing boat from which he collects ice for the local drinks industry.

One day he pulls an iceberg from the sea that’s rejected because it’s too smelly. A local scientist discovers that it’s not infected water, but solidified mucus from ‘something big, something old’.

Has this big, old thing anything to do with a missing Portuguese fishing vessel and its crew?

And a leg discovered by the coastguard, which has had its bone marrow sucked out?

As all this unfolds, the villagers are divided over plans to relocate them yet again. One of Calvin’s sons is fed up with looking after Airbnb guests because he wants to go on the boat. The other son is getting threatening texts: ‘You’re a dead man.’

What does all this mean? Simply that you won’t be able to gaze at a picturesque stretch of open water in future without wondering what horrors might lurk below the surface.