What Lies Beneath

Plot synopsis:
Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) lives in Vermont with her husband Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford), an accomplished scientist. After dropping her daughter Caitlin (Katharine Towne) off at college, Claire begins to notice the activities of the couple who have moved into the house next door, the Feurs.
Overhearing Mary Feur (Miranda Otto) sobbing one day, Claire becomes concerned when Mary tells her she is afraid she may disappear. When she sees Mary's husband Warren (James Remar), a colleague of Norman's at the college, dragging a suspicious form in the middle of the night and putting it in the trunk of his car, she suspects he has killed Mary. Claire decides to investigate. After nobody answers the door, Claire soon witnesses strange occurrences when she is alone in the house and becomes convinced that Mary is dead and haunting her. Desperate to reach Mary's spirit, Claire invites her friend Jody (Diana Scarwid) to join her for a séance in her bathroom. Although the séance provides no results, after Jody leaves, Claire finds a message in the bathroom's mirror that reads "You know". Hysterical, Claire rushes to the college to confront Warren, but is surprised to see that Mary is with him and has been alive the entire time. Mary visits her the next day and apologizes for the misunderstanding, explaining that she briefly left her husband because of their volatile fights with each other. Claire begins to see a therapist at the urging of Norman, who worries that her mental state is declining because of Caitlin's departure and a car accident Claire suffered a year earlier.
Despite the resolution with the Feurs, Claire continues to experience strange phenomena in her house. She sees the ghostly image of a woman in the lake from her dock, and finds a silver key beneath the screen of a floor vent. After a picture falls and breaks, Claire notices a newspaper clipping about a missing girl named Madison Elizabeth Frank (Amber Valletta). She learns that Madison attended the university where Norman works, and that the police assumed she simply ran away a year ago. Norman comes home and Claire seduces him as Madison during the tryst, causing Norman to push her away. Claire comes to herself and the memory of her own car accident returns as she remembers that she had caught Norman and Madison together. Distraught by the discovery, she had crashed her car into a tree while driving in a rain storm.
Outraged by Norman's infidelity, Claire spends the night with Jody, who confirms to Claire that she too had her suspicions of Norman's infidelity when she spotted him with the girl in the nearby town of Adamant. The next morning Claire is called by the police, after Norman is nearly electrocuted by a hair dryer that fell into the bathtub while he was taking a shower. Claire is convinced that it was an attempt by Madison to take revenge, and that her spirit has now been appeased. Norman confesses to Claire that while he did have an affair with the girl, he played no part in her disappearance.
Seemingly reconciled with Norman, Claire visits Adamant, where she spots the same key-necklace in a shop window along with a chest it unlocks. That night, she dives into the lake and uncovers the box, unlocking it with the key and finding the matching necklace. Norman interrupts her and alters his story: after breaking off his affair with Madison she was so distraught that she committed suicide by overdosing on pills in the Spencer house. In a panic, he placed Madison's body into her car, which he then pushed into the lake, and threw the chest with his matching necklace in it into the lake as well.
Claire is unmoved by Norman's explanation and tells him the only way to make it right is to notify the police and bring Madison's body up from the lake. Norman pretends to speak with the police on the phone and agrees for an officer to come to the house. When he leaves to take a shower, Claire redials the phone and discovers that he never placed the call. Norman grabs her from behind and sedates her with a paralyzing drug. He drags her to the bathtub and leaves her to drown in the rising water, so that she will appear to have committed suicide. In the midst of this Norman then confesses to Claire that his previous story had been a lie: he killed Madison to prevent her from going to the Dean about the affair and ruining his career. He intimates that he hopes Claire's death will bring him closer to her daughter Caitlin. As he leans in for a final kiss, he spots Madison's necklace around Claire's neck and tries to remove it. Claire's face takes on the image of the dead Madison, and in shock Norman slips on the floor and bangs his head on the rim of the tub, knocking him out.
Claire, recovering from the paralysis, barely manages to shut the tap off and save herself from drowning. When she regains her strength she finds that Norman is missing from the bathroom floor. She crawls down the stairs to the phone, and notices Norman apparently unconscious, his head bleeding profusely. As she reaches over him and attempts to make a phone call, he grabs her ankle and in a blind panic she rushes out of the house, grabbing the car keys and a cellular phone and driving away in a truck with the couple's sailboat hitched to the back. As she is crossing the bridge over Lake Champlain, Norman bursts through the back window and grabs Claire; she frantically dials 911 and the truck careens down the embankment into the lake.
Underwater, Claire escapes out the window, but Norman grabs her leg. A ghost-like decaying body, grabs Norman and forces him to release Claire's leg, allowing Claire to escape. Norman drowns while staring into the dead face of the woman he killed. Madison's body floats to the surface of the lake as the truck dislodges Madison's own sports car.
That winter, Claire places a single red rose on Madison's grave.

Tags: suspenseful, gothic, murder, paranormal, horror, haunting, revenge

Review:
A good old-fashioned scary movie, avoiding irony and self-referentialism at every turn, this film relies on a nice premise and some well-executed creepy atmosphere for its impact.
For my wife and I, it gave a bit away about how the movie was likely to end.Michelle Pfeiffer was really good, I'd guess she was in almost every single shot in the film, so anything but a great performance would have shown.
However, casting aside that gargantuan issue, What Lies Beneath is an effective creeper come thriller that boasts star credentials.Directed by Zemeckis, formed from an idea by Steven Spielberg (from the story by Sarah Kernochan) and starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as the fragmenting Spencer's.
What follows is a mixture of genuine unease and mystery, red herrings and standard boo jump moments, all of which almost gets lost on a saggy middle section as Zemeckis plays Hitchcock one too many times and loses sight of the supernatural heart of the piece, not helped by Clark Gregg's meandering script I might add.
In eagerness to manipulate the audience for the fine ending (though you probably will have it worked out at the half way point) the film just ends up as being confused as to what it mostly wanted to be.Pfeiffer is excellent and looks stunning and Ford gives it gusto when the script allows.
The true beauty of this film is the manner in which it holds up over time and how it DOES splice all of the great filmmaking techniques together into a nice homage to classic suspense films.The plot, including the incremental revelations of paranormal activities within the newly gone-off-to-college childless home of Pfeiffer and Ford, is not really what drives this movie.
It is very hard to find Ebert and Roeper's critiques impervious to default when this film does not tend to lose much of its emotional effects upon repeat viewings.To elaborate, the unknown ghost, its motivation, and its history and relevance to Claire (Pfieffer) are plot points for the basic construction of a three act narrative; and, a three act narrative is a contrivance proved to be effective for the assimilation of information by means of tapping into the inherent way humans use logic to invent concepts from raw data (if a, then b, and if b, then c: therefore if a, then c).
My eyes bugged out, my skin crawled, my breath got short, and I couldn't have torn myself away even if the Publisher's Clearing House Prize Patrol was at my door.Along with a great story and masterful directing, this movie features the superb performance of Michelle Pfeiffer.
Even "Stir Of Echoes" and "The Sixth Sense", fine films that they are, don't compare to the perfect blend of soundtrack, plot twists, camerawork and performance that make up "What Lies Beneath".
When I went to the cinema to watch this movie,I expected it to be another big-budget Hollywood garbage.After the seance I was pleasantly surprised.I saw "Scream 3" some days ago and that movie wasn't nowhere near as scary as "What Lies Beneath".Great performances by Michelle Pfeiffer(she looks really gorgeous in this one)and Harrison Ford.The climax is absolutely terrifying(especially the bathtub sequence).Plenty of suspense and shocks,wonderful atmosphere of dread and fear.Finally after never-ending strain of lame slasher flicks a truly suspenseful movie.Check it out if you dare.Highly recommended..
Great acting from Harrison Ford and Michelle Phiffer really make this movie what it is...A good thriller.
As the company's first project, Zemeckis chose screenwriter Clark Gregg's "What Lies Beneath," a modern-day ghost story that, the director told his crew, he wished to bring to the screen as Alfred Hitchcock might have done, IF the Master of Suspense had had access to modern FX technology and computer graphics.
(Never mind that none of Hitchcock's 54 films dealt with ghosts or the supernatural per se.) Filmed largely in the Lake Champlain region of Vermont, near Addison, during a hiatus from shooting "Cast Away," the resultant picture, released in July 2000, was still another significant feather in Zemeckis' already crowded hat, and, like those other films named, features impressive yet subtly integrated FX to complement a highly intriguing story.
As both a horror film and an exercise in suspense, "What Lies Beneath" must be deemed a complete success.In the picture, we meet an attractive, middle-aged couple, Norman and Claire Spencer, and indeed, as portrayed by Hollywood icons Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, the Spencers might be one of the handsomest couples in the history of the horror film!
But before very long, weird occurrences begin in the newly "empty nest." Strange noises and whisperings, a broken picture frame, spectral reflections in the surface of the lake and (in perhaps the film's single scariest scene) bathtub water, all serve to convince Claire that the ghost of a young woman is haunting her abode...possibly the ghost of her new next-door neighbor, who Claire believes has been killed by her husband.
Some of Alan Silvestri's score is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's classic music for "Psycho," while Claire's use of binoculars to spy on her neighbors at night cannot help but call to mind Jimmy Stewart in "Rear Window." Pfeiffer and Ford work well together and do have some screen chemistry; they make a credible couple, although Norman, as it turns out, might be one of the least sympathetic characters that Ford has ever essayed.
Watching her in this film, in which she easily displays far more dramatic heft than her costar, and also reveals what an effective "scream queen" she can be, the viewer will most likely regret how few other horror vehicles Ms. Pfeiffer has appeared in.
And really, besides 1994's "Wolf," I can think of no others, unless we stretch the point a bit and include 1987's "The Witches of Eastwick" and this past summer's horror comedy "Dark Shadows." One of the finest combinations of sensational looks and undeniable acting chops to this day (and Michelle is 54 as I write these words), she is quite simply one of the best we've got, and makes Claire Spencer and "What Lies Beneath" a character and a film to savor.
So without giving too much away, it was exciting to watch Pfeiffer work her way through this mystery.Harrison Ford is certainly in fantastic shape for a 58 year old, and with a nice tan, was very easy on the eye; mine anyway!
Another complaint I've heard is that the movie "rips off" Hitchcock's films (a collapsing character pulls a shower curtain down off the hooks with her, a character is named Norman, etc) but I do know the difference between a ripoff and a loving tribute, and Zemeckis knows what he's doing, I highly doubt he was trying to trick the audience into thinking these were his original ideas.
In "What Lies Beneath", director Robert Zemeckis gives us a thriller that reminds one of the great films made by Alfred Hitchcock.
The two personalities, one unbridled and afraid, the other disbelieving and confused, play off one another perfectly to create an aspect of marital discord that adds wonderfully to the film's complexity.With plenty of twists and turns (which I dare not reveal) to keep you guessing to the end, great acting, virtuoso camera work, and some truly frightening moments, "What Lies Beneath" is a thriller that ranks with some of the best of them.
But, the secrets Claire finds out are more terrifying than she could ever of imagined.Robert Zemeckis, the director of the movie has done a great job here as usual.
(Steven Spielberg is my all time favourite director.) Harrison Ford as usual gives a brilliant performance and Michelle Pfeiffer is good too.I thought What Lies Beneath was a great old-fashioned thriller and we don't get that many around nowadays.
The cast is solid,the atmosphere seems right,the imagery equal parts erotic and chilling and yet...There is about forty minutes out of this over two hour fest where there is a completely unnecessary red herring subplot(something that was explained away easily in the ads!)where the error-prone,gradually suspicious-but-loving wife(Michelle Pfeiffer)of a popular college professor(Harrison Ford in a role MANY will not be familiar or comfortable) is wrapped up in the death of a woman that lives next door to their palatial,rural estate.
Besides the fact that it has little or no bearing on the true plot of the movie,but the amount of time devoted TO that MacGuffin is so tedious that it feels as if the director,producers and the advertising execs pushing this film weren't on the same page.I seem to have been the only one(at least if you went by the comments I've skimmed so far on this site)to noticed.Director Robert Zemekis wants(stress WANTS)to make a Hitchcock-like thriller:he half succeeds in that he creates good mood and tension,but he fails miserably in making a slow,long,tedious and aggravating film where the plot takes WAY too much time to establish and the action to get rolling.
Even after repeated viewings, I can still enjoy the creepy atmosphere and well-crafted narrative.For a basic plot summary, this movies sees Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Norman (Harrison Ford) Spencer send their only daughter off to college.
Robert Zemeckis is a master director, so he knows exactly how to craft a movie with the right kind of pacing to fully suck the viewer into the lives of Claire and Norman.
I can't say much about Harrison Ford's role without hinting spoilers but he does a commendable job.I enjoyed 'What Lies Beneath' much more during my second viewing than the first time (which was more than five years ago) but I think the main reason was that I was able to pay more attention to other parts of the movie other than just the story, such as the technical aspects (like camera-work and sound effects), and also see and enjoy the homage to so many classics (mostly Hitchcock's films).
It doesn't have the humor of "Scream", it doesn't have the camp value of the "Evil Dead" series, it doesn't have the teen appeal of "I Know What You Did Last Summer", it doesn't have the originality of "The Blair Witch Project", it doesn't have the pure suspense of the "Alien" series, and it doesn't have the surprise ending of "The Sixth Element".If you like predictable make-you-jump scary movies, this could be the one for you.
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert Zemeckis, what's not to like?
While this memorable chiller from Robert Zemeckis may recall every classic thriller from Gaslight (1944) to The Haunting (1963), including a number of references to Hitchcock's classics, What Lies Beneath is a well-done and engrossing modern tribute to the old-fashioned suspense thriller.Vermont housewife begins to believe that her home is haunted by a spirit, but just what do the people around her have to do with it?Many have criticized this film for having a bit of a convoluted plot, but What Lies Beneath is a much more intelligent film than some let on.
Michelle Pfeiffer is genuine in her portrayal of the spooked housewife, as is Harrison Ford who does a terrific turn as her husband.Whether seen for its artistic direction or just for an evening of good spooky entertainment, What Lies Beneath is a great watch.*** 1/2 out of ****.
I don't think Alfred Hitchcock ever made a movie about ghosts, but if he did, it may have been something like "What Lies Beneath." The film is stuffed with references to Hitch's work with nods to "Psycho," "Rear Window" and "Vertigo." The Master would have been chuckling to himself watching this in the theatre.Michelle Pfeiffer plays a woman suffering from "empty nest" syndrome after her daughter leaves home for college.
Harrison Ford plays her rich scientist husband and he spends most of the time trying to figure out what is happening to his wife and cope with the changes in her behaviour.It's rare for a major Hollywood movie to star a middle-aged actress these days and even rarer for the heroine she's playing to be a lonely, depressed middle-aged woman (that must have been a tough sell to the studio!) and it's a refreshing change to see that.Michelle Pfeiffer looks stunning and is holding up well for her age (or rather her magnificent cheekbones are holding her age up well!).
It's a departure from the normal roles he plays.Robert Zemeckis does a great job as director as the film shifts gears from low-key psychological drama, to mystery thriller and into the area of the supernatural too.
Finally, a movie that actually good and actually scary.Harrison Ford and Michelle Phieffer are Norman and Claire, a married couple, who lives in a lake shore home in Vermont.
The evidence pointed to someone that she was close too.What Lies Beneath has a lot of scary moments and the performances by both Harrison Ford and Michelle Phieffer were super, and showed that you don't need very young actors to bring the people to see this movie.
But while it may seem quite stupid to try to copy such a brilliant director's work (the "Psycho" remake comes to mind), Zemeckis has surprisingly created a great film here.Clair and Norman appear to be a happily married couple.
But gradually she finds out that she isn't going insane and that her husband has kept a terrible secret for her...I liked the performances by Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer a lot, but than again, what else but a fine performance can you expect if you are talking about these two actors.
In this film, he again demonstrates his talent, creating a spooky supernatural thriller delivering some of the best suspense I've seen in years.The story by Sarah Kernochan (`9 ½ Weeks', `Sommersby') where the dead victim communicates with someone living to finger the killer is not innovative and has been done numerous times in various forms.
You wouldn't think such a cast and director would deign to be in a horror film, albeit one with a sizable budget, but here they are, in this wonderful, captivating thriller.Claire (Pfeiffer) and Norman (Ford) are a well-to-do married couple living on a somewhat palacial lakeside estate in Vermont.
So is Robert Zemeckis, whose 3 year hiatus has grown a build-up for his fans-including me-out there expecting some quality cinema, and while this film isn't the classic his previous 2 were (Forrest Gump and Contact), it's far better than what a lot of critics have given it credit for.Norman and Claire Spencer (Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, respectively) are a happily married New England couple whose grown-up daughter just left home for college.
There is some truth in that, but the finale is also thrilling and suspenseful, thus lessening any sort of true negative impact it might have had if the scenes were less competently executed.The only 2 performers who are given a substantial amount of screen time are Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, and both are terrific.
This is a good scary movie where it will send you and your family/friends huddled together at times, a story about Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) who believes her lakeside home in Vermont is haunted by a ghost.
This film, on the other hand, has a captivating plot; coupled with the the acting performances of Pfeiffer and Ford make this movie worth a watch.
wow, good stuff" Some minutes pass: "Wow, nice seeing Harrison not doing his "side smile" and man, Michelle never ages" - Some time later "Well, this movie isn't scary at all, I mean...
Counter wise, anybody who can get into the films they watch is certain to be scared by this film.`What Lies Beneath' stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Claire starts seeing paranormal visions and hears strange whispers, and as she tries to find out who the mystery ghost-woman is, she finds she got a lot more than she bargained for!Wickedly twisted, superbly mystical and wonderfully suspenseful, 'What Lies Beneath' is a brilliant scary movie that doesn't have to rely on gore or run-of-the-mill slashing scenes in order to frighten you.And just when you think the movie is nearing the finish line, the plot takes a turn...
Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford and Robert Zemeckis as the director.
Michelle Pfeiffer is amazing on this role, she is the typical homemaker, but this time, she see a ghost, and in the bad tub!!!!!!, that's very creepy, that's the more terrifying scene of all, Harrison Ford is very good on his role, of the sweet husband who hides a secret, his act start getting better after the first hour of the movie, but still Pfeiffer stole the lead role.
Even if you don't really care for scary movies, give this one a try, all you film fans, especially if you like Pfeiffer or Ford.
Well, you can't really say that for "What Lies Beneath" because even though that happened with the husband who seemed so perfect, this movie had the idea way before most of the ones that followed, like, for example take "Hide and Seek." The dad was so nice, and then turned bad at the end.
If you didn't watch the trailer, you will enjoy it even more because you didn't know what you're getting yourself into.The acting are good, especially Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford, and the music reminds you of Hitchcock, the master of suspense.
Robert Zemeckis is an excellent filmmaker, Michelle Pfeiffer is a very capable actress and Harrison Ford, well he is my all time favorite movie star.
I have to say that the Story is great and that the cinematography is the technical element that gives the mood for the entire film.Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer are superb!
By the way, this is Pfeiffer's film, she has the dominant screen time and she sure looks great!!So what's wrong with "What Lies Beneath"?
Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer are great, the story is solid and I love the twists and turns.
What Lies Beneath is a very intense movie with some great twists that I would recommend to anyone looking for a good thriller or horror.