Netflix’s new sea-monster thriller Below is the biggest show on the planet right now — and everyone is asking whether the new Below Netflix series is based on a true story. The six-part Canadian series, starring Josh Hartnett as a Newfoundland fisherman facing a creature under the ice, climbed to No. 1 on FlixPatrol’s worldwide Netflix TV chart on October 10, just two days after all six episodes premiered on October 8, with an 82% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes (Men’s Journal reported both figures on October 11). The short answer: no, Below is not based on a true story. But the longer answer is more interesting — because almost every strange detail, from the “Old Hag” sleep-paralysis visions to a bizarre flamingo, was pulled from genuine Newfoundland folklore and history.
What Is Netflix’s Below About?
Below is a six-episode supernatural thriller created by Jesse McKeown (The Umbrella Academy), which premiered on Netflix on October 8, 2026. Josh Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a fisherman and iceberg harvester in the remote fictional town of Snook’s Arm, Newfoundland. Mackenzie Davis co-stars as Dr. Fonda Howander, a visiting marine researcher, and Charlie Heaton plays Calvin’s son Wade.
After a prologue set in Newfoundland in 1986, the story jumps 40 years forward. Calvin is trying to hold his family and struggling fishing community together when a massive iceberg appears in the harbour — and fishermen start disappearing. What looks like an environmental mystery quickly becomes something far more terrifying.
Is Below Netflix Based on a True Story? No — But It Is Not Fully Invented
No — Netflix’s Below is not based on real events. Snook’s Arm is fictional, the giant sea creature is fictional, and there was no real iceberg-monster attack in Newfoundland.
But creator Jesse McKeown told What’s On Netflix that however fantastical the series becomes, it all grew out of real Newfoundland history and folklore. His best example: a strange flamingo detail in the series is based on a real incident — a Caribbean flamingo somehow ended up in Newfoundland, was shot by a passerby, and is now on display at The Rooms museum in St. John’s. McKeown visited it himself and wrote it into the show as a sign that something is going wrong with the natural world.
Producer Jessica Rhoades said she hopes viewers finish the series wanting to look things up — which is exactly why so many people are now searching for the true story behind Below.
The Real Newfoundland “Old Hag” Legend That Inspired the Show’s Scariest Moments
For many viewers, Below’s scariest element is not the monster but the Old Hag. After an encounter with the creature, Wade begins sleepwalking and hallucinating, receiving terrifying nighttime visits from this Newfoundland folklore figure. This is where the show is closest to real life: the Old Hag is a genuine legend.
In Newfoundland folk belief, the Hag is a figure who leaves her body at night and sits on a sleeper’s chest. The victim wakes terrified, struggling to breathe under a perceived heavy weight, unable to move — classic sleep paralysis. Victims said they were “hag-ridden,” and families slept with Bibles under pillows or hung seaweed by the bed to keep her away.
Sleep-paralysis “hag” figures exist across cultures — the night-mare of Scandinavian folklore, the Karabasan of Turkey, the Alp of Germany — but the Newfoundland version is distinct enough that two 2026 horror shows, Below and Widow’s Bay, have now built their scariest sequences around it in the same year.
The True History Behind Snook’s Arm: Resettlement, the Cod Collapse, and Vanishing Towns
The creature is invented, but the pressure on the town is real. McKeown grounded the story in Newfoundland’s history of hardship: killer storms, maritime disasters, and the collapse of the cod fishery that gutted coastal communities in the 1990s. The show also weaves in the province’s resettlement programs, which paid people to leave dying outport towns — the same question facing Snook’s Arm, where residents must decide whether to accept a buyout and leave (McKeown has cited resettlement and the cod-fishery collapse as the real historical stakes the story is grounded in).
Critics credited this authentic local texture: the story works because the social stakes — a community fighting to preserve a disappearing way of life — are completely real, and the monster sits on top of a genuine conversation about climate change and towns losing their livelihoods. The show also lands in a year when entertainment is everywhere — from Hollywood’s biggest year since the pandemic at the box office to the celebrity stories making headlines this week.
Below Ending Explained (Spoilers Ahead)
The big twist: the giant iceberg in Snook’s Arm harbour is not what it seems. The strange, ammonia-smelling mass is connected to the creature beneath the water — and the finale forces Calvin and the town to confront it head-on.
By the end, the monster matters less than what it brings out in the town. Reviews note the show shifts from a Jaws-style creature hunt into something closer to The Thing: residents begin deteriorating too, sleepwalking and hallucinating like Wade. The question stops being “what is in the water?” and becomes “what is in my neighbour?” — the swerve from monster movie to psychological horror that has driven the flood of “ending explained” searches.
Will There Be a Below Season 2 on Netflix?
Netflix presents Below as a limited series — built as one closed story, with no second season announced. The six episodes run roughly 40 minutes each, about four hours of total viewing. The finale leaves the door open for more, and if the #1 worldwide performance holds through October, expect Netflix to think about it.
FAQ: Is Netflix’s Below Based on a True Story?
Is Netflix’s Below based on a true story? No. Below is a fictional supernatural thriller. But creator Jesse McKeown drew heavily on real Newfoundland folklore (the Old Hag sleep-paralysis legend) and real history (the flamingo incident, the cod fishery collapse, town resettlement programs).
Is the giant creature in Below based on a real animal? The creature is fictional — a giant, squid-like sea monster. Reviews note the show deliberately hides it for most of the series, teasing a giant eye here and a writhing tentacle there before the full reveal.
Will there be a Below season 2? Not currently. Netflix billed Below as a limited series and no second season has been announced.
Where was Below filmed? On location in Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada — the same province where the story is set.
The Bottom Line
Below is not a true story, but it is built from true things: a real folklore nightmare, real historical trauma, and real details collected from the place itself. That is what makes it so effective — and so hard to stop thinking about after the credits roll. All six episodes are streaming on Netflix now.