What Lies Beneath

What Lies Beneath is a 2000 American supernatural thriller film directed by Robert Zemeckis from a screenplay by Clark Gregg, who co-wrote the story with Sarah Kernochan. The film stars Harrison Ford as a university professor and Michelle Pfeiffer as his wife, who is unsure if their home is haunted by a ghost or if she is losing her mind. The film also features Diana Scarwid in a supporting role.
The first film by Zemeckis' production company ImageMovers, What Lies Beneath was theatrically released in North America by DreamWorks Pictures and internationally by 20th Century Fox on July 21, 2000. While it received mixed reviews from critics who praised Pfeiffer's performance and criticized Gregg's script, the film was a box office success, grossing US$291 million worldwide and becoming the tenth highest-grossing film of the year.
What Lies Beneath was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film at the 27th Saturn Awards, in addition to nominations for Best Director (for Zemeckis) and Best Actress (for Pfeiffer). At the 7th Blockbuster Entertainment Awards, Ford and Pfeiffer won Favorite Actor – Suspense and Favorite Actress – Suspense, respectively, and Scarwid was nominated for Favorite Supporting Actress – Suspense.
Claire Spencer and her husband, Norman, an accomplished scientist and professor, live a quiet life at their lakeside home in Vermont. Their relationship is strained, particularly after Claire's daughter and Norman's stepdaughter, Caitlin, leaves for college. Adding to the tension, it has been a year since Claire suffered a serious car accident.
Claire notices that their new neighbors, Mary and Warren Feur, have a volatile relationship. Mary seems fearful, and when she disappears for several days, Claire begins to suspect that Warren may have killed her. She starts experiencing unsettling occurrences: she believes she sees a woman's body in the lake, their front door opens on its own, and she senses an eerie presence in the house. When a framed newspaper article about Norman falls from his desk and shatters, Claire discovers an unusual key. Soon after, she finds the bathtub mysteriously filled with water and sees another woman’s reflection in it.
Norman is dismissive of Claire's growing fear that their house is haunted. He is critical of her concerns, has little patience for her, and suggests she see a therapist. During a session, Claire mentions seeing a woman who bears a striking resemblance to her. The therapist encourages her to investigate further.
Determined to uncover the truth, Claire and her friend Jody hold a séance. Shortly after, she again finds the bathtub filled with water. A cryptic message reading "you know" appears on the foggy bathroom mirror, and her computer inexplicably types the initials "MEF." Convinced that Mary’s ghost is haunting her, Claire publicly confronts Warren, Mary appears next to him—alive and well. Claire learns that Mary had gone to her mother’s house after a fight with Warren.
At a party, a friend reminds Claire of an argument she had with Norman a year earlier and asks if she is okay. When Claire returns home, the newspaper clipping falls again. This time, she notices a story on the back about a missing woman named Madison Elizabeth Frank. Claire visits Madison’s mother and secretly takes a lock of her hair. She also sees a photo of Madison wearing a distinctive necklace—and is struck by the resemblance between herself and Madison.
Following instructions from a book on the supernatural, Claire attempts to summon Madison’s spirit. She becomes possessed and aggressively seduces Norman, shocking him by speaking in Madison's voice. The possession ends when she drops Madison's lock of hair. This triggers a repressed memory: Norman had an affair with Madison, one of his students, during a rough patch in their marriage. Claire had forgotten about it due to her car accident.
Shaken, Claire spends the night at Jody's house. Jody confesses that she once saw Norman arguing with a woman at a café in the nearby town of Adamant a year earlier. However, after Claire's accident, she felt she could not tell her. Claire forgives her.
Returning home, Claire finds Norman unconscious in the bathtub, an electric hairdryer nearby. He assures her it was an accident. He admits that Madison had confronted him at their home when he ended their affair but insists he did not kill her.
Later, standing by the lake, Claire is pulled into the water by an unseen force. While submerged, she sees a jewelry box matching the necklace Madison wore in the photo. Norman pulls her out of the water, and they burn Madison's lock of hair. Claire convinces herself that the haunting is over.
Though she and Norman seem to reconcile, Claire's suspicions return when she suggests visiting Adamant, and Norman pretends not to know the town—despite Jody seeing him there with Madison. Claire visits Adamant alone and recognizes the same necklace and jewelry box in a shop window. She recovers the box from the lake and unlocks it with the key from Norman's office, finding Madison’s necklace inside.
When she confronts Norman, he initially claims that Madison killed herself and that, in a panic, he pushed her car into the lake with her body inside. He pretends to be remorseful and agrees to call the police, but Claire realizes something is wrong. Suddenly, Norman attacks her and paralyzes her with halothane.
Norman confesses that he murdered Madison when she threatened to expose their affair to the university dean. He mocks Claire, saying he initially assumed she made up the ghost story to subconsciously reveal the truth, but then realized she actually believed it. He places Claire in the bathtub, filling it with water to stage her suicide. As he removes Madison's necklace from Claire's neck, her face briefly transforms into Madison's corpse. Startled, Norman stumbles backward, violently smashing his head against the sink and knocking himself out.
As the drug begins to wear off, Claire struggles to stay conscious. Just as the water rises over her head, she manages to unplug the drain and narrowly escapes drowning. Weak but determined, she slowly makes her way out of the bathroom. As she tries to grab the phone, Norman regains consciousness and chases her. Claire flees in his truck, unaware that he has jumped onto the attached boat trailer.
As she drives, Norman climbs onto the truck and attacks her, causing the vehicle to crash into the lake. Trapped underwater, Norman tries to drown Claire. Suddenly, the wreck of Madison’s car—submerged beneath them—shifts. A part of the boat impales the roof, dislodging Madison’s decayed corpse. As Norman attempts to kill Claire, Madison's body floats up and appears to come to life, grabbing him. Claire escapes while Norman, struggling in terror, drowns. Madison's corpse returns to its lifeless state, drifting back into the depths as her necklace slips from Norman's hand.
That winter, Claire visits a cemetery and places a red rose on Madison’s gravestone.
Documentary filmmaker Sarah Kernochan had adapted a personal experience with the paranormal as a script treatment featuring a retirement aged couple dealing with restless but compassionate spirits. DreamWorks commissioned a rewrite from actor-writer Clark Gregg. This script was delivered in 1998 by Steven Spielberg to his director friend Robert Zemeckis, who had signed a deal for DreamWorks to distribute the films of newly founded production company ImageMovers, and announced interest in doing a thriller film. Harrison Ford then signed on to star in the film, even agreeing to clear room in his schedule for the project. Michelle Pfeiffer then followed as DreamWorks started to negotiate with 20th Century Fox regarding the film's distribution. Ford and Pfeiffer were Zemeckis' first and only choices for the lead roles. Fox agreed to distribute both What Lies Beneath and Zemeckis' other project Cast Away, with the thriller having DreamWorks doing the domestic distribution and Fox the international one.
What Lies Beneath was filmed while production of Cast Away took a hiatus to allow Tom Hanks to lose weight and grow a beard. As Gregg had to remain with production for rewrites, he had to decline an offer to read for a major role in Sports Night; Aaron Sorkin later created a minor role in the final episodes of the series for Gregg.
What Lies Beneath opened in 2,813 theaters in North America and grossed $29,702,959 for an average of $10,559 per theater. It reached the number one spot at the box office upon opening, beating X-Men. The film ended up earning $155,464,351 domestically and $135,956,000 internationally for a total of $291,420,351 worldwide, close to triple its production budget of $100 million.
On Rotten Tomatoes, What Lies Beneath holds an approval rating of 47% based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 5.50/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Robert Zemeckis is unable to salvage an uncompelling and unoriginal film." Metacritic assigned the film a weighted average score of 51 out of 100, based on 35 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.
The New York Times wrote that "at the start, [Zemeckis] zaps us with quick, glib scares, just to show he still knows how, but his heart isn't in this kind of material anymore. His reflexes are a little slow." The Los Angeles Times called it "spooky with a polished kind of creepiness added in... What Lies Beneath nevertheless feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall." Time Out thought that "after a slow build that at times makes every hair stand on end – Zemeckis rolls out every thriller cliché there is. A pity, because until then it's a smart, realistically staged, adult-oriented and extraordinarily effective domestic chiller." Empire wrote "The biggest surprise is, perhaps, that what emerges is no masterpiece, but a semi-sophisticated shocker, playfully homaging Hitchcock like a mechanical masterclass in doing 'genre'. The first hour is great fun... It's an enjoyably giddy ride, certainly, but once you're back from the edge of your seat, you realise most of the creaks and groans are from the decomposing script."
Writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four. He praised Michelle Pfeiffer's performance, calling her "convincing and sympathetic", but commented, "Lacking a smarter screenplay, it milks the genuine skills of its actors and director for more than it deserves, and then runs off the rails in an ending more laughable than scary. Along the way, yes, there are some good moments." He also stated that he felt the problem with Zemeckis' desire to direct a Hitchcockian film (What Lies Beneath contains several musical, visual and plot references to Psycho and Vertigo, among other Hitchcock films) was Zemeckis' decision to involve the supernatural, a device Ebert felt Alfred Hitchcock never would have done.
The film was unofficially remade in India as Raaz and released in 2002.