What Lies Beneath ««
PG-13, 126m. 2000
Cast & Credits: Harrison Ford (Norman Spencer), Michelle Pfeiffer (Claire Spencer), Diana Scarwid (Jody), Miranda Otto (Mary Feur), James Remar (Warren Feur), Joe Morton (Dr. Drayton), Amber Valletta (Madison Elizabeth Frank), Victoria Birdwell (Beatrice), Katherine Towne (Caitlin Spencer). Screenplay by Clark Gregg. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
What Lies Beneath incorporates some of the same scare tactics last summer’s supernatural surprise hit, The Sixth Sense, did. Those scare tactics were the kinds of scenes where there was almost a deathly silence and then just when we least expect it, something happens scaring the characters and causing the audience members to either gasp, jump, laugh or do a combination of all three.
In The Sixth Sense, the scenes that caught me off guard were when strangers would suddenly appear in front of the troubled young kid played by Oscar nominated Haley Joel Osment. Remember the scene where a young boy asked the Osment character if he wanted to see his father’s shotgun? The boy looked completely normal from the front. When he turned around, though, there was a gaping hole in the side of his head. Unexpected scenes like those made the story all the more unsettling.
A number of scenes in What Lies Beneath are deathly silent but they all come in obvious ways. Some examples: The hair dryer Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) uses suddenly goes out. She fools with it for a second. Then BOOM. A spark emanates from an overloaded electrical wall socket. The audience gasps.
Another scene is as Claire walks to the front door, it opens on its own for no apparent reason. She hesitantly walks in thinking someone might have broken in the house. Then a loud scratching noise emanates from the stereo that suddenly turns on without anyone touching it.
Thinking the new home she and her husband (Harrison Ford) just bought is haunted, Claire holds a séance with her friend (Diana Scarwid) in the bathroom. This is where she first encountered the ghost; a woman who she thinks died in the house sometime ago. There is that deathly silence again. The bathroom door slowly creaks open. Then...well, you should know by now that a pattern is developing here. I wasn’t at all surprised by the way any of these shots turned out. I knew exactly what would be around the corner. The reason could be me. Perhaps I have seen one too many movies. Or is it the audience? Perhaps they are so easily entertained they don’t realize these sequences have been done before in countless other movies, many of them better.
What made The Sixth Sense unique was how it presented different aspects of how spirits appear. The bright lights, for example, that appeared on photographs and the way the rooms got so cold, people could see their breaths coming from their mouths.
What Lies Beneath reverts back to the old “things that go bump in the night” premise where doors open on their own, pictures fall off their desks, and stereos come on full blast.
Director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump-1994) and screenwriter Clark Gregg must have watched Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies, along with several notable suspense thrillers and horror films in preparation for this film. Claire, at one point, exhibits dominating traits like the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction (1987). There are scenes taken out of movies like Fright Night (1985) (neighbor puts a body bag in the trunk of his car at night) and The Shining (1980) (the bathtub sequence where the ghost of a previous tenant resides). Most of all, What Lies Beneath is not so much a tribute to Hitchcock as it is a cheap imitation of every shot he incorporated into his classic films.
The movie opens with similarities to Psycho (1960). Instead of a bathroom with a hole in it for someone to peak through, there is a wooden fence with a hole for Claire to spy on the crying young woman who just moved in next door.
The film then becomes Rear Window (1954) as Claire, thinking the woman was murdered by her husband, spies on the couple with binoculars. This makes for one of the funniest scenes in the movie midway through when she realizes this isn’t the case.
Then finally, Vertigo (1958) which some consider a ghost story where the female lead could also be the missing woman who died a year before. Then we’re back to Psycho again. How you might ask? Well, the first name of the character Ford plays is “Norman” like in Norman Bates? Instead of getting upset every time his mother’s name is mentioned, it is his father’s. But I’ll leave that for you to figure out. I won’t divulge the numerous plot twists that occur throughout the second hour. I will say the movie ends with a theme similar to composer Bernard Herrmman’s musical score from Psycho.
Somewhere in this clever premise is a chilling ghost story waiting to get out much like the spirit that won’t leave Claire alone.
A number of people in the audience were taken by surprise by what they thought were unexpected occurrences that took place in those deathly silent shots. The scenes that took me by surprise though were like the ones in The Sixth Sense I described earlier in this review. What Lies Beneath has its share of those shots. I counted at least three, which was how many times I jumped in my seat.
I wished this movie featured more of that. It uses too much of one thing and not enough of the other.
©7/26/2000
PG-13, 126m. 2000
Cast & Credits: Harrison Ford (Norman Spencer), Michelle Pfeiffer (Claire Spencer), Diana Scarwid (Jody), Miranda Otto (Mary Feur), James Remar (Warren Feur), Joe Morton (Dr. Drayton), Amber Valletta (Madison Elizabeth Frank), Victoria Birdwell (Beatrice), Katherine Towne (Caitlin Spencer). Screenplay by Clark Gregg. Directed by Robert Zemeckis.
In The Sixth Sense, the scenes that caught me off guard were when strangers would suddenly appear in front of the troubled young kid played by Oscar nominated Haley Joel Osment. Remember the scene where a young boy asked the Osment character if he wanted to see his father’s shotgun? The boy looked completely normal from the front. When he turned around, though, there was a gaping hole in the side of his head. Unexpected scenes like those made the story all the more unsettling.
A number of scenes in What Lies Beneath are deathly silent but they all come in obvious ways. Some examples: The hair dryer Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) uses suddenly goes out. She fools with it for a second. Then BOOM. A spark emanates from an overloaded electrical wall socket. The audience gasps.
Another scene is as Claire walks to the front door, it opens on its own for no apparent reason. She hesitantly walks in thinking someone might have broken in the house. Then a loud scratching noise emanates from the stereo that suddenly turns on without anyone touching it.
Thinking the new home she and her husband (Harrison Ford) just bought is haunted, Claire holds a séance with her friend (Diana Scarwid) in the bathroom. This is where she first encountered the ghost; a woman who she thinks died in the house sometime ago. There is that deathly silence again. The bathroom door slowly creaks open. Then...well, you should know by now that a pattern is developing here. I wasn’t at all surprised by the way any of these shots turned out. I knew exactly what would be around the corner. The reason could be me. Perhaps I have seen one too many movies. Or is it the audience? Perhaps they are so easily entertained they don’t realize these sequences have been done before in countless other movies, many of them better.
What made The Sixth Sense unique was how it presented different aspects of how spirits appear. The bright lights, for example, that appeared on photographs and the way the rooms got so cold, people could see their breaths coming from their mouths.
What Lies Beneath reverts back to the old “things that go bump in the night” premise where doors open on their own, pictures fall off their desks, and stereos come on full blast.
Director Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump-1994) and screenwriter Clark Gregg must have watched Alfred Hitchcock’s best movies, along with several notable suspense thrillers and horror films in preparation for this film. Claire, at one point, exhibits dominating traits like the Glenn Close character in Fatal Attraction (1987). There are scenes taken out of movies like Fright Night (1985) (neighbor puts a body bag in the trunk of his car at night) and The Shining (1980) (the bathtub sequence where the ghost of a previous tenant resides). Most of all, What Lies Beneath is not so much a tribute to Hitchcock as it is a cheap imitation of every shot he incorporated into his classic films.
The movie opens with similarities to Psycho (1960). Instead of a bathroom with a hole in it for someone to peak through, there is a wooden fence with a hole for Claire to spy on the crying young woman who just moved in next door.
The film then becomes Rear Window (1954) as Claire, thinking the woman was murdered by her husband, spies on the couple with binoculars. This makes for one of the funniest scenes in the movie midway through when she realizes this isn’t the case.
Then finally, Vertigo (1958) which some consider a ghost story where the female lead could also be the missing woman who died a year before. Then we’re back to Psycho again. How you might ask? Well, the first name of the character Ford plays is “Norman” like in Norman Bates? Instead of getting upset every time his mother’s name is mentioned, it is his father’s. But I’ll leave that for you to figure out. I won’t divulge the numerous plot twists that occur throughout the second hour. I will say the movie ends with a theme similar to composer Bernard Herrmman’s musical score from Psycho.
Somewhere in this clever premise is a chilling ghost story waiting to get out much like the spirit that won’t leave Claire alone.
A number of people in the audience were taken by surprise by what they thought were unexpected occurrences that took place in those deathly silent shots. The scenes that took me by surprise though were like the ones in The Sixth Sense I described earlier in this review. What Lies Beneath has its share of those shots. I counted at least three, which was how many times I jumped in my seat.
I wished this movie featured more of that. It uses too much of one thing and not enough of the other.
©7/26/2000
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