What Lies Beneath (2000)

Average rating

(64%)

Starring:	Harrison Ford \| Michelle Pfeiffer \| Joe Morton \| Miranda Otto \| James Remar \| Diana Scarwid \| Ray Baker
Director:	Robert Zemeckis
Studio:	20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time:	125 mins
Collections:	100 Horror Films
Genres:	Horror
Languages:	English
Hearing-impaired:	English
Subtitles:	Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Released:	September 17, 2001
Also available on:

Robert Zemeckis takes a page right out of Hitchcock and runs with it in the spooky supernatural thriller WHAT LIES BENEATH. Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford) and his wife, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer), seem to have the perfect life: a loving marriage, a daughter just entering college, and a beautiful home on the water in Vermont. But what lies beneath this idyllic existence are secrets that will rip everything apart.
Dr. Spencer is an award-winning scientist whose work is threatening to consume his life; meanwhile, his wife is trying to deal with empty-nest syndrome now that her beloved daughter has gone off to college. Strange things start happening around the house, and Claire starts believing that the man next door murdered his wife and that the wife is trying to contact her from beyond the grave. Dr. Spencer is worried that Claire needs psychological help; he refuses to believe that their house is haunted. But as more and more dangerous events unfold, a frightening truth threatens to destroy everything.
Robert Zemeckis's modern-day ghost story trembles with threatening close-ups, a powerful musical score--and lots of terror. And it does for bathtubs what Alfred Hitchcock did for showers.

Screenshots

Rating of 3 stars out of 5

Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer are the principal attractions in this formulaic but enjoyable supernatural thriller from director Robert Zemeckis. Scientist Norman Spencer (Ford in distinctly non-heroic mode) and his wife Claire (Pfeiffer) have renovated their idyllic Vermont lakeside house; their domestic bliss is disturbed when Claire starts seeing and hearing ghostly apparitions. After suspecting their strange neighbour of foul play — a subplot that echoes Rear Window — it soon becomes obvious that an event in the past has returned to haunt them. A creaking cocktail of light suspense and implausible plotting that pushes every tried-and-tested scare button, this mass-market shocker is illuminated by Pfeiffer's wholly believable performance as the traumatised wife. While Zemeckis is no Hitchcock, this is an efficient retread of territory already claimed by Stir of Echoes, The Sixth Sense and even Fatal Attraction. You know what to expect!

Rating of 1 stars out of 5
Halliwell's Film Guide

Slick sub-Hitchcockian drama, which can't quite decide whether to settle for being a thriller or a supernatural chiller.

Highest rated reviews

Most recent reviews

Chilling

Edward Frost from England, Essex, 22nd April, 2008

I enjoyed watching 'What Lies Beneath', mostly for the coupling of Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, who work brilliant as a married couple harbouring a secret, well Ford does anyway. Pfeiffer plays the passive role of a housewife who is subjected to a series of disturbances in their large, lakeside house. Regular cliches of the horrow genre arise (creaks,breaking glass with no explanation etc) and it all builds to quite a suspensefully intense climax. If you dont know the big twist in the narrative, then this is a great film to watch, if you do know (and i did before viewing) then there is nothing much to look forward too, other than the chemistry between the two leads and the great setting, Enjoyable but nothing stand out.

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