Deeper than the descriptions

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

I'm not naming actors by name. You have the couple expecting a child and the couple who lose one in the apartment below. Female below is dominated by an older man, who's full of himself to the point of nausea, who goes berserk after wife falls down steps after dinner "party". Said fall blamed on couple expecting's cat but truth is female below is freaking out due to dominants behavior, and try's to hurry out due to hiding wine consumption. Those below lose child. But the words yelled by dominating male WOULD INSURE NO FURTHER CONTACT WITH THOSE BELOW. But these are times when one must be positive regardless of behavior. Which leads to an unbelievable acquiescence by the couple expecting for these two dysfunctional and possible dangerous people below to be intertwined with them to the point of letting the woman below to "watch" baby of couple expecting, essentially a complete stranger, for hours on end. There's enough red flags yet father goes along with the ones below machinations even after mother gets wise....These are times when altruism is the norm. Where the phrase "don't be a hater" originated. The result is earned. Disturbing ending.

After a slow star the film picked up, a nice twist for the film ending and the cast blended well together.

THE ONES BELOW is a modern addition to the wave of psycho-thriller films that were all the rage in Hollywood in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These films typically depicted suburban families at the menace of urban threats and THE ONES BELOW is no exception. This time around, dull couple Clemence Poesy and Stephen Campbell Moore are an expecting couple whose relationship with their new neighbours, played by David Morrissey and Laura Birn, quickly sours.This thriller has an early plot twist which comes out of nowhere and is extremely shocking and powerful. Once I saw it, I was hooked. Sadly, the rest of the narrative can't match these early moments, and indeed this is a film that gets gradually more and more predictable as it goes on. As usual the main characters are ten steps behind the viewer and it gets more than a little familiar and more than a little tiresome very quickly.Poesy makes for an unlikeable heroine although Moore is good, even though his character is typically dim and oblivious to what's going on around him (much like his role in THE CHILDREN). Birn and Morrisey are excellent in their subdued and creepy roles, no surprise given the latter actor's pedigree. This low budget story is well shot and realistic, but towards the end it gets very dramatically unsatisfying, which I put down to laziness on the writer's part. The extensive use of flashbacks is also poor. In the end, this is a seen-it-all-before type film that needs more oomph and more originality to make it work.

A part of me wonders if the evil couple faked their pregnancy and planned to do what they did all along or are they really that sadistic that they would go so far to kill someone else, destroy a family and then steal their baby. I was so super hoping for them to get caught...so I will admit, I was bothered by this as I went to sleep and then for the rest of the day after. What bothered me the most is how there seemed to be no real trust between the good couple. The husband seemed to immediately think in adverse to his wife and not believe her when she felt something was off about their neighbors. The wife, also should have headed her husband's intentions to ignore them and not involve them in their lives again, but she ignored his wishes as well. The acting was on-point and the directing was done very well. Kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time wondering what was going to come of this story.