The Ones Below (2015) Review
Back in the early Eighties I used to get a buzz from renting a video title, I knew little about, on the off-chance that it could turn out to be a hidden gem to delight in. Jump forward to nowadays and the chances are, in our media saturated age, that there’s little out there that hasn’t been hyped to death before you get your chance to see it. It makes me yearn for the days when I took a chance on an unknown title, one that the majority would have overlooked or avoided in preference to a massively marketed title instead.
Such an opportunity came my way when I took a chance on British flick The Ones Below. I stuck it on, not expecting anything much from it, and came away from the viewing experience thinking ‘WOW’! It could be that I completely missed the marketing push for The Ones Below, prior to its theatrical release earlier this year, but I think it’s unlikely, given my leanings towards the genre, I tend to miss nothing. The Ones Below is a title that should not have slipped under the radar, it’s far too good. It’s unnerving, coldly creepy and lingers long in the grey matter after viewing.
Kate (Clémence Poésy) and Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) are a London-based professional couple expecting their first baby. New neighbours move in downstairs, following the passing of the previous resident, and, unseen, have taken to reshaping the overgrown garden into something more ordered and meticulous. That ordered and meticulous behaviour extends to the downstairs neighbours leaving their footwear outside their flat door too, nothing unusual about that but it does give us an idea about how rigid the people are living behind that door. Kate soon meets and befriends Theresa (Laura Birn), one-half of the downstair’s couple, and things seem to be going well between them. Theresa’s partner Jon (David Morrissey) remains unseen but his presence is felt, whether it’s from a glimpse in the background of a restaurant as Kate and Justin dine, to how he controls Teresa and his surroundings. Theresa is also expecting a child and the two ladies bond quickly leading to both Kate and Justin inviting their downstairs neighbours to an evening dinner at their flat, which culminates in a tragic accident that sees Theresa losing their unborn child.
Jon and Theresa disappear abroad for awhile to take stock of their situation, returning a few months later, during which time Kate has given birth to a little boy, Billy. Initially the relationships between the neighbours remains strained but soon finds a more comfortable groove as Theresa agrees to babysit for Billy occasionally. Kate welcomes the break, feeling tired and exhausted with a little one to look after, mostly alone. However Kate soon feels that there’s more to things that meets the eye and she begins to suspect that her neighbours are attempting to steal her child.
Director David Farr, making his feature-film début, never lets the tension and mounting unease and paranoia sag. It makes for an exhausting, edge-of-the-seat thriller that packs an unsettling punch. Is Kate imagining things or are her worst fears actually manifesting? You are kept guessing right up till the end. Farr’s film resonates with menace within even the smallest details – words spoken could in turn be interpreted as threats if one was unsure or a little paranoid, and even the sight of a couple of pairs of shoes, left sitting orderly outside a flat door, provides chills.
There’s elements of Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby (1968) and Repulsion (1965), as well as 1992’s trashy smash-hit The Hand That Rocks the Cradle, French horror masterpiece Inside (2007), and even 1990’s Pacific Heights. That The Ones Below manages to remind of such of selection but still remain its own very impressive beast is a credit to the director and his remarkable cast. If you judge a film’s scariness based on unnecessary jump-scares or gore then I would recommend looking elsewhere, however if you’re in the mood for a well-crafted, lean, mean, nasty thriller then you are in for a treat.
