Netflix dropped the Below trailer on September 10, 2026, and it’s our first full look at Josh Hartnett’s sea-creature series ahead of its October 8 premiere. Here’s the twist: for a monster show, the trailer never actually shows the monster. July’s teaser showed you more.
Trailer via Netflix on YouTube.
Below: Release Date, Cast and Episode Count
Below is a six-episode Netflix limited series from creator Jesse McKeown, and all of it lands on October 8, 2026. Josh Hartnett plays Newfoundland fisherman Calvin Penney, opposite Mackenzie Davis and Charlie Heaton. Before that, it premieres at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 12, 2026.
| Detail | Confirmed |
|---|---|
| Premiere | October 8, 2026 (all six episodes) |
| Format | Six-episode limited series |
| Creator / showrunner | Jesse McKeown (The Umbrella Academy, Letterkenny, The Sinner) |
| Lead cast | Josh Hartnett (Calvin Penney), Mackenzie Davis (Fonda Howander), Charlie Heaton (Wade Penney) |
| Supporting | Natasha Henstridge, Joshua Close, Rohan Campbell, Ruby Stokes, Willow Kean, Kaleb Horn, Mary Walsh |
| Setting | Snook’s Arm, Newfoundland (fictionalised) |
| Production | Pacesetter Productions; ordered February 2025, shot in Newfoundland and Labrador |
| Trailer | 2 minutes 23 seconds, posted to Netflix’s YouTube channel September 10, 2026 |
| Festival premiere | TIFF Primetime, September 12, 2026 |
So What Does the Trailer Actually Show?
Mostly people reacting to things. Before Netflix’s 18-second subscribe card, you get roughly 100 cuts, about one every 1.3 seconds.
A House Floating Out to Sea
It opens on flat grey water and fog. Then a clapboard house comes into view, being towed across the water with a rowboat of people alongside. The trailer stays with that house for its first fifteen seconds. Then a wave hits and the whole thing tips over.
That’s not a monster attack. It’s the show’s thesis image, and we’ll get to why below.
A Proper Newfoundland Screech-In
In a bar strung with lights, a woman in a sou’wester holds up a cod. A young man leans in, kisses the fish, recoils, and knocks back a shot of rum while the room cheers. That’s a screech-in, the Newfoundland ceremony that turns a “come from away” into an honorary Newfoundlander.
Small moment, big clue: someone in this story is an outsider.
Something Hits the Nets
A little past the halfway mark, a man in a wide-brimmed hat hauls in a line of yellow floats. Suddenly the water inside the line erupts into white churn and he pulls back. What’s down there? The trailer won’t tell you. The camera stays on the surface and on his face.
That’s the whole trailer in one shot. The creature is only ever churned-up water and a human reaction, a very different approach from the one in our Silo Season 4 trailer breakdown.
Only Josh Hartnett Gets a Name Card
Later on, the screen goes black and reads JOSH HARTNETT, then dissolves straight into a close-up of his face against a Newfoundland hillside. Nobody else in the cast gets a card, which is unusual for an ensemble this big.
Other faces pop up, like a woman with a megaphone and an older man in a workshop, but the trailer doesn’t say who they are.
The Big Finish
Near the end, the trailer spells out its tagline across three cards: THERE’S SOMETHING, IN, THE WATER. In between, you get a motionless figure laid out on dark boards, wooden waterfront buildings on fire, and a man underwater, struggling.
Then comes the real closing image. A man presses himself against a round porthole, and the glass fills with a face, lit green through the water, staring straight back out. It’s a human face, not a creature. The title card and the October 8 date follow.
What Changed Since the July Teaser?
Netflix posted an 85-second Below teaser on July 28, 2026. By September 10 it had 3,445,129 views, against 90,149 for the new trailer in its first hours. Line the two up and, of the fourteen big moments below, five carry over from July and nine are brand new.
| Moment | July teaser | September trailer |
|---|---|---|
| Floating house, under tow | Yes | Yes — now the opening shot |
| House capsizing | Yes | Yes |
| Boy in the fog | Yes | Yes |
| Community arriving, luggage, hugs | Yes | Yes |
| Iceberg | Yes | Yes |
| Sonar contact on a boat monitor | Yes | Gone |
| Large dark mass underwater | Yes | Gone |
| Screech-in | No | New |
| Nets erupting | No | New |
| Motionless figure laid out on boards | No | New |
| Waterfront structures burning | No | New |
| Man submerged | No | New |
| Face at the porthole | No | New — the closing image |
| “JOSH HARTNETT” name card | No | New |
The bold rows go the wrong way. July’s teaser showed a sonar contact with a hand pointing at it, then cut underwater to a large dark mass in bright turquoise water.
That rounded, tapering mass could just as easily be rock. But it’s the closest either video comes to putting a body in the water, and the September cut drops both shots.
What the Trailer Doesn’t Show
- The creature. Not once. Even the darkest underwater shots near the end turn out to be a man in the water.
- Any sonar or instrument readings. They were in July’s teaser. They’re gone here.
- Any marine science. The cast includes a visiting marine researcher as a co-lead, but you never see research being done: no lab, no survey gear, no readings.
- An explanation for one odd shot. A gold-lit underwater close-up, also in the teaser, that the trailer never explains.
One more thing: Netflix has said the series isn’t supernatural, per TVLine’s July report. And yet the trailer ends on a face suspended in green water behind a porthole. Those two things are hard to square, and that tension is probably the point.
Why the Floating House Matters More Than the Monster
The trailer opens on a house under tow because that image is where the show comes from. Newfoundland ran resettlement programmes from the 1950s into the 2000s, moving outport communities and, famously, floating whole houses across the water to the next harbour. The real Snook’s Arm was resettled in 2018.
Creator Jesse McKeown told The Canadian Press on September 10, 2026: “There’s something about that image of the house on the water and a family pulling everything.” He put the premise plainly (“At its heart, Below is about a fisherman who can’t fish because there’s no fish left”) and said he wanted to “tap into a feeling we all have right now: that we’re sort of living on the precipice.”
Watch the trailer with that in mind and it clicks. The house goes over before there’s any hint of a creature, because the town was already losing. That’s a more interesting show than a straight monster movie, and it’s why the marketing can keep the monster off screen. Netflix also cancelled its Forgotten Realms series recently, which makes a self-contained six-episode run a sensible shape for this one.
Frequently Asked Questions
When does Below premiere on Netflix?
All six episodes of Below arrive on Netflix on October 8, 2026. The series screens first at the Toronto International Film Festival’s Primetime programme on September 12, 2026.
Does the Below trailer show the sea creature?
No. The creature never appears on screen. Every moment that hints at it uses churning water, a whirlpool, a net or the aftermath instead. The July teaser came closer, with a sonar contact and a large dark underwater mass, and both of those shots were cut from the September trailer.
Who stars in Below?
Josh Hartnett plays fisherman Calvin Penney, Mackenzie Davis plays marine researcher Fonda Howander, and Charlie Heaton plays Wade Penney. Natasha Henstridge, Joshua Close, Rohan Campbell, Ruby Stokes, Willow Kean, Kaleb Horn and Mary Walsh also appear.
How many episodes is Below?
Six. It is a limited series created and written by Jesse McKeown, produced by Pacesetter Productions and shot in Newfoundland and Labrador.
What is the ceremony in the bar in the Below trailer?
A screech-in. It’s a Newfoundland tradition where a visitor becomes an honorary Newfoundlander by kissing a cod and drinking Screech rum. The trailer shows all three steps: the fish is presented, it gets kissed, and the shot follows.
Sources: the trailer and teaser themselves (Netflix, YouTube); Netflix Tudum; Wikipedia. Last updated September 10, 2026.
