The Ones Below

The chillingly twisty plotting is dispensed in painstakingly measured increments that allow for maximum dread and, ultimately, well-earned shock value, while his four leads deliver equally subtle performances that sync with the pacing beat for beat.

The Ones Below is an intimately disturbing nightmare of the upper middle classes, with tinges of melodrama and staginess, entirely appropriate for its air of suppressed psychosis.

Toward the end, Mr. Farr employs familiar cinematic sleights of hand, but with a finely calibrated touch.

Even the film's lapses inform it with a free-associative sense of portent, evoking the stupid things we inexplicably do in our most personal nightmares.

The Ones Below is a creepy genre exercise by a craftsman finding his groove.

The Ones Below is a thriller that exasperates more than it thrills.

The Ones Below needs some B-movie embellishment to set it apart from every other wannabe thriller, but it hopes it’s too serious for such things. So exacting and severe, we see the strings and grow bored of their inevitability.