Director: Jamie Bailey
Somewhere between a submarine thriller and a creature feature, What Lurks Beneath traps a warship's crew between a geopolitical standoff and something they can't explain.
What is What Lurks Beneath about?
The 2024 Canadian horror film, directed by Jamie Bailey, opens with the crew of the USS Titan already on edge, caught in the middle of rising tensions with Russia that feel one misstep away from open war. That tension gets punctured in the strangest possible way when an unidentified stowaway turns up inside one of the ship's torpedo tubes. Captain Banks initially assumes the intrusion is a matter of national security, worried the presence aboard is tied to the standoff with Russia, but the crew quickly realizes they're dealing with something that doesn't fit any military briefing. Dela Reilley, Ryan Giesen, Simon Phillips, Sienna Star, Michael Swatton, Blake Canning, Anne-Carolyne Binette and Nick Biskupek round out the vessel's crew, and the film uses the sealed, claustrophobic geography of a submarine to escalate dread scene by scene. What starts as a political thriller premise slides sideways into body horror territory, with the ship's confined corridors leaving nowhere for the crew, or the audience, to look away.
Cast & crew
Dela Reilley plays Captain Banks with a wariness that shifts convincingly from geopolitical suspicion to outright fear as the true nature of the stowaway comes into focus. Ryan Giesen and Simon Phillips lead the supporting crew, giving the ensemble the kind of tight, high-pressure dynamic a submarine setting demands.
Context & significance
What Lurks Beneath, released in 2024, folds Cold War-style submarine tension into a creature-horror framework, a hybrid that lets the film build dread from both military procedure and the unknown at once. Shooting within the tight corridors and control rooms typical of submarine-set productions keeps the scale small and the pressure constant.
Where & how to watch
What Lurks Beneath is streaming on K-Time, accessible after signing in with a free account through a viewing experience designed for Farsi-speaking audiences. No extra software or downloads are required beyond logging in to start the film.