Is 'Below' A Lovecraft Adaptation? The Netflix Show's Sea Creature, Explained
Netflix's Below (2026) has officially dropped all six episodes and delivers some fun moments of massive sea creature terror with a larger mystery that unfolds. However, since the miniseries is set up north in a fishing town and the creature itself is rather mysterious, some people might be wondering if it has ties to an H.P. Lovecraft story.
Below follows the Penney family and their father, who is a fisherman in their small town of Snook's Arm, as a monstrous sea creature begins to terrorize the residents. As we learn more about the creature, we get clear answers about what this story is. However, it's impossible not to ignore the nods to Lovecraft.
'Below' Isn't an H.P. Lovecraft Adaptation
Below uses its premise of a killer giant squid to trick the audience into thinking there's more to the story than we think. Like Jaws (1975), this series is more based on science than anything else. As climate change impacts the world, it forces Below's giant (emphasis on giant) squid to migrate to Snook's Arm and protect her nest, which becomes her breadth of motivation for the entire series. The Lovecraftian elements we do glimpse are more of a red herring than anything else, as they only serve to keep you from the truth of what's really going on. Likewise, the story is original, meaning it isn't an adaptation of Lovecraft's work.
'Below' Contains Lovecraftian Inspiration
Even if there are no cosmic horror elements in Below, that doesn't mean the series isn't aware of what it's working with. Through the squid's frozen mucus, characters experience hallucinations and begin to crave water to the point of drowning. It seems like this is all in service of an almighty squid god, but everything can be explained away.
There's also a small cult of followers who worship and coexist with the squid, and while they certainly seem like something out of "The Call of Cthulhu," it's not a massive cult, nor is it a powerful one. Just people who found a way to live alongside a massive behemoth of a creature. Nevertheless, these Lovecraftian elements form the hallucinations of the creature itself and give Below an unforgettable charm.
'Below's Sea Creature Is More Than a Monster
Below is more than a story about a giant sea monster or how it impacts a town. It's a lesson about the world changing and the mysteries of it slowly dying due to that change. As the waters get warmer, what the Below's characters experience is the beginning of the end of an age of creatures that can't survive on the planet anymore. The squid and her offspring are doomed to death long before they realize it, and what we see in the series are the final throes of that.
The creature itself is more than a massive killer monster; it's a lesson that in order to preserve nature, we can't push it away or eliminate it. Instead, we have to learn to coexist with it, give it the conditions to survive, and understand it with the time we have left with it. Otherwise, we learn nothing and fail to help the world and all the creatures in it we know of and don't.
