Below's Newfoundland Setting, Character Accents & Filming Locations Explained

Published Oct 14, 2026, 9:30 PM EDT

Faith Roswell is a Senior Writer on Screen Rant's Classic TV team. Since earning her degree in Creative Writing over a decade ago, Faith has written articles on film and TV from a variety of different angles. Faith now combines her knowledge of psychology with her love of monster movies to give more insight into what makes the best ones. 

You may have read her Screen Rant lists and features covering horror, sci-fi, and fantasy, or read her Amazon Top 10 book, "Movie Monsters of the Deep."

Faith has had an extensive career as a writer, appearing on BBC live radio, researching true crime for Rotten Mango podcast, and writing for publications including Mental Floss, Atlas Obscura, and The Daily Jaws before beginning here at Screen Rant. 

Netflix's new sea monster thriller TV show, Below, places some very well-known actors into a stunning location that can, at times, be hard to identify. Despite sometimes resembling Ireland, Scotland, and Scandinavia, Below is actually set in Canada's Newfoundland, and ​the six-part miniseries is a perfect example of a horror show you can binge in a day. Josh Hartnett heads the cast of Below, starring as Calvin Penney, a struggling fisherman and iceberg harvester who finds himself in a struggle to protect his family and way of life as the dangers come from many sides, including underwater.

Resembling a cross between Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft, and Jaws, Below has set an all-time viewership record as the biggest debut in history for a Netflix original from Canada. According to Netflix's top ten most-watched English-language series for the week beginning October 5, ​​​​​​​Below has the top spot with 17 million viewers and a total of 69.3 million viewing hours. ​​​​​​​While some reviews have been mixed, highlighting several loose ends, one thing that even the show's biggest critics have agreed on is that the choice of location was inspired.

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Where Netflix's Below Series Is Set In Newfoundland

Credit: Netflix

Canada's Newfoundland island is so key to Below that even before the show had its official title, it was known as Untitled Newfoundland Project. Newfoundland is part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and while the island alone is roughly the size of Arizona and contains around 90% of the province's population, Below is set within the small town of Snook's Arm rather than a large metropolitan area, and the show uses this insular setting to its full potential.

Below has an 86% positive critics' score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Below's fishing town of Snook's Arm looks to be on Newfoundland island's Avalon Peninsula. The location might be beautiful, but Below makes it clear that life there is growing increasingly harsh. While newcomers like Airbnb guests are impressed by the beauty of the scenery, the locals are struggling. As fish grows scarce and the industry suffers, fishermen like Calvin have begun harvesting the immense icebergs that regularly enter the nearby coves to supplement their income by selling them for use in drinks.​

Mystery TV shows like Twin Peaks have made an art out of setting events against a stunning backdrop that contrasts with the darkness at the center of the story. However, Below uses its Newfoundland setting in a unique way, ensuring that the series could not have worked anywhere else. The "small town" atmosphere ensures that every character knows and has history with others, but even Snook's Arm feels like a character in its own right, with its weather-beaten houses that have already been relocated once before, reflecting real events.

The Accent Used In Below & How The Cast Prepped For It

One of the first things that viewers will notice about Below is the distinctive accent shared by most of the main characters to varying degrees. This was initially confusing to some and laughable to others, as opinions varied on whether or not the actors had accurately captured the accent that they were going for. Newfoundland English is a collection of dialects that can, at times, reflect British and Irish influences, with Below's subtitles offering some more clarity. Many characters substitute "b'y" for "boy," reflecting common Newfoundland dialect, while the giant squid is called Mudder (mother.)

The show's Newfoundland accent was meaningful for creator Jesse McKeown (The Umbrella Academy.) In an interview with Variety, executive producer Jessica Rhoades explained that "Jesse has family in Newfoundland. He wasn’t going to be allowed to go home if we got it wrong." Below's Penney family members share the same accent, but it is less strong in the children who live away from the island, reflecting the way McKeown's wife's accent also changes depending on her location.

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Terrible accent choices can ruin great movies and TV shows, so it was essential for the actors to prepare well. McKeown's Variety interview further highlighted the lengths the main actors went to in order to sound authentic, with the creator praising Hartnett in particular, saying "I’ll just say Josh was incredible. Before he even came, he started listening to Newfoundland radio..." Hartnett listened to The Fisheries Broadcast, in which people discuss the fishing industry, which his character would need to talk about.

Hartnett told The Hollywood Reporter that he not only lived like a local, visiting shops and restaurants in town, but that he and Charlie Heaton (Stranger Things) worked with a dialect coach. Heaton had just three weeks to get his version of the dialect right, beginning with podcasts and YouTube videos and reportedly struggling with the way in which the accent changes from bay to bay, but eventually finding his own tone that sold Hartnett and Heaton to viewers as a father and son from a small town.

Is Snook's Arm A Real Town? Where Below Was Actually Filmed

Credit: Netflix

The most visually stunning TV shows of all time often have spectacular real-life settings, with Below looking set to join this list. Snook's Arm is a fictional town that shares its name with a real town which was also relocated. Still, the show was not filmed in the real Snook's Arm, with other Newfoundland towns standing in for the fictional location. The majority of Below was filmed in Brigus South, with many houses receiving a "make-under" to make them more weathered and run down. This included the church, which was temporarily replaced with an older version of the same building.

Other parts of the town and its surroundings were created using different parts of Newfoundland's Avalon Peninsula. Around 60 miles North of Brigus South is Pouch Cove, which houses wooden buildings and rugged cliffs, forming the backdrop for some of Below's pivotal scenes, while Linda's Bar is a real bar in Harbour Main that was renamed for the show. Bay Bulls was central to Below's "key expeditions," according to Netflix, and even parts of Newfoundland and Labrador's capital, St. John's, were used, with Fonda's marine research facility being set up in St. John’s Ocean Sciences Centre.

Still, of all Below's filming locations, Twillingate makes the biggest visual impact in the series. Known as “The Iceberg Capital of the World,” the area regularly sees immense icebergs passing, which makes it the perfect location for the moment in which the iceberg concealing Mudder's egg sac arrives in the bay, as well as Below's haunting and ambiguous ending, revealing many more icebergs that may or may not be dangerous. Below's storyline and accents might not have impressed every viewer, but if season 2 goes ahead, the locations are all-but guaranteed to remain the show's highlight.

Source: Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix

Below

5/10