“The Devil Below” (American; 2021; horror; run time 1 hour, 28 minutes; directed by Bradley Parker, written by Eric Scherbarth and Stefan Jaworski; rated TV-MA for language and smoking; streaming on Netflix) has everything you would expect from a low-budget horror film, and therein lies the problem. Excepting an unnerving stretch of “Annihilation”-type hallucinatory imagery in the final act, Parker’s film does little, if anything, to distinguish itself from a million other such movies. Stop me if you’ve heard this one: A group of young people goes into a heavily wooded area, where they encounter unfriendly rural types who tell them to mind their own business and turn around and go home. They do not heed the warnings, of course, and bad things ensue as characters meet a terrible fate one right after the other until only the main character is left. In this case, that would be Arianne (Alicia Sanz), a woman who doesn’t let anyone get close to her because she carries with her a dark secret. Arianne is good at getting adventurous types to where they want to go, and in this case, she is the navigator for a geological expedition led by Darren (Adam Canto), who is curious about a sinkhole in coal-mining country but, of course, has ulterior motives. A mining town had vanished almost 50 years ago, and the locals, somehow, someway, have kept the spot hidden from the outside world EVEN THOUGH the sinkhole is where a town used to be and can easily be spotted by aircraft. The locals know there’s more than coal in that hole. An “alternative species” (yep, that term was uttered) has taken up residence there, and they aren’t too fond of humans. “The Devil Below” runs through the usual setup, with a bare minimum of character development, generic drama and a couple of awkward stabs at moral dilemma. Then what’s left of the group, with the help of a couple of the smarter hillbillies, encounters the creatures, and they are terrifying. They work the former mine like ants and can paralyze the humans they capture. Their toxins work on the humans’ minds, too, and here is where director Parker, whose background is in visual effects and animation, shines. The scenes are reminiscent of how the Scarecrow’s spray worked on his victims in “Batman Begins.” Unfortunately, the story isn’t up to the task and, conveniently, the creatures’ paralyzed victims can move around just enough to, say, hurl a grenade (just within reach!) or work a cellphone. The ending is more shoulder shrug than satisfying. The performances are just so-so, though Sanz; Will Patton as the leader of the local yokels; and Jesse La Tourette as the bravest and wisest of the mountain folk have their moments. “The Devil Below” is better than many other similarly budgeted horror flicks, but that isn’t saying much. You could watch this movie from the 65-minute mark to the climax, and that would suffice. My score: 31 out of 100.