BELOW. Josh Hartnett as Calvin in episode 105 of Below. Cr. Jan Thijs/Netflix© 2025
The epic cephalopod in Below is a sight to behold whether she’s on or off-screen. The massive, squid-like creature initially evokes fear and terror, not to mention racks up quite the body count in the first few episodes, but creator Jesse McKeown and the writers ultimately reveal more nuance to the beast. She’s unveiled as a mother protecting her young in the iceberg.
Like the show’s central hero, ice fisherman Calvin Penney (Josh Hartnett), she’s always fighting for her family.
A Monster Rooted in Real Marine Biology
For the supernatural seaside horror story set in Newfoundland, the fantastical creature was rooted in real science. “Jesse had done a lot of research,” VFX supervisor Matt Glover told What’s on Netflix. “They had consulted with some marine biologists and we did the same too. We reached out for someone who’s got a PhD, writes books on cephalopods. And so a lot of it was in the script already, things like the hard shell. Jesse knew we wanted it to be really old, so prehistoric cephalopods had hard shells.”
Taking the Jaws Approach to the Reveal
Glover and the rest of the team at Mr. X then completed a wide spectrum of designs. The visual effects supervisor noted there was room for interpretation – picking and choosing eye and arm shapes from the initial batch of designs. In the vein of Jaws, Below initially took a less-is-more approach to what audiences do and don’t see of the creature.
“It wanted to be a slow reveal,” Glover continued. “We also wanted to smartly come up with different silhouette choices like, oh, you just see the eye at first. Is it a whale? Is it a shark? Is it something else? You catch a glimpse of tentacle. Okay, is it a giant cuttlefish? Is it an octopus? We wanted to make sure we were making some smart iconic design choices that we could use to help the buildup of her reveal across the first few episodes, especially.”
Why the Creature Loses Her Color
Some of those design choices leaned toward the naturalistic rather than the anthropomorphic. Once more of the creature is revealed, more of her pain is as well.
“Early on, we keep it pretty brutal and it’s more suggested than seen, but even then you want to save that reveal as you learn it alongside the characters that she’s not the biggest threat. She’s just looking out for herself,” he added. “Luckily, the story feeds into that because cephalopods, they do live in the cold water and the deep. So, the fact that she’s been somewhere so warm, she is slowly deteriorating and loses a lot of her color.”
By the end of the series, the creature is literally hanging on to dear life. As well as an iceberg, which Penney then pulls out to deeper and colder waters.
“So she’s very pale when she’s up against the iceberg for most of episode six and moving a little more lethargically,” Glover said. “She’s losing some faculties, so we could have some more of those tumbly, piled up motions in the tentacles.”
An Eye That “Contains Multitudes”
By the finale, when the creature and Calvin come face to face, the dynamic has changed. He sees himself in her eye.
A running joke at Mr. X was that the creature’s eye needed to “contain multitudes,” like “looking into a galaxy.” The eye needed to inspire awe and let audiences fill in the gaps.
“She’s looking at Josh pretty specifically,” Glover concluded, “because that’s the last time they’re going to be in each other’s presence. We did play the eyeline pretty hard, but in other shots… Even if she’s looking in the direction past the camera, her eye darts away. She looks around – to try to keep the animalistic intention there while also still trying to tell a pretty strong narrative story between her and the rest of the cast.”
