What Lies Beneath

Written by: Clark Gregg Starring: Michelle Pfeiffer, Harrison Ford, Joe Morton, Diana Scarwid

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who like scary movies and those who don’t. The trick for a scary movie maker is to get both kinds into the theaters, and one way to do that is with the drawing power of top stars. Robert Zemeckis, who is nothing if not shrewd, landed two of the biggest for his gothic thriller. Set in a misty New England lake community, “What Lies Beneath” stars Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer as a perfect Vermont couple who run into a spot of trouble with their house. Pfeiffer gives a fine, fragile performance (and she looks stunning: she seems to be one of those women who gets better looking as she gets older), and Ford is appropriately burly. And for once the age mismatch between the two leads actually makes dramatic sense.

The two stars put in the requisite star turns (they have to--the whole movie is them, them, nothing but them; and while I am on the subject, allow me to put in a plug for the terrific Joe Morton, who is criminally underused here, and should be getting much bigger and better roles), but in a way, it’s too bad that the movie has to leverage their presence as much as it does. Thrillers shouldn’t be about stars, but about thrills. It would have been interesting to see if this movie worked with unknowns in the lead. But then, unknowns don’t make for a big opening weekend. The story is simple: Perfect couple Norman and Clair (Ford and Pfeiffer) send their only daughter off to college, leaving Clair with way too much time on her hands (how about a hobby, Clair?). She begins to experience poltergeist-like phenomena and becomes convinced that the house is haunted by a spirit who just may have mayhem in mind. Like a Junior X-Files Agent, Clair must somehow get to the bottom of the mystery and rid the house of its unwelcome guest.

Naturally, genetic scientist Norman is skeptical about the whole thing (he even makes a “Ghostbusters” joke at one point), and his arguments with Clair about what she is experiencing allow some hidden marital tensions to surface, which I guess is part of what's lying beneath. Fortunately for Clair, clues to the mystery are scattered about like ninepins. First time scenarist Clark Gregg has written a competent, if not inspired, screenplay. It really combines two genres, Hitchcockian psychological suspense and occult thriller, and Gregg obviously went to the right writing classes and did his homework. He lays in all the requisite setups and pays them off in the end, as any competent writer should. Zemeckis has had a very successful--but inconsistent--career. For every heartfelt and moving “Forrest Gump” there is a syrupy and static “Contact.” But clearly he has talent, and a good thing too, because in lesser hands “What Lies Beneath” would have fallen apart. Zemeckis’s story sense and pacing compensate for the rather conventional suspense aspects of the picture.

He does a very credible Brian DePalma imitation, replete with sinuous, pulse raising camera glides and plenty of sudden jolts (it is a mark of skill if the director can jolt you with a slow pan as well as a quick cut, and Zemeckis can), but these moves are hardly groundbreaking by now. In fact, it can become a little game for the viewer, to see if you can spot the traps before they are sprung on you. I mean, how many times have we seen a character looking in a refrigerator, only to be startled by someone standing there when they close the door? And for crying out loud, doesn’t anyone ever watch where they are going any more? No wonder everyone gets startled in this picture--they all walk down the stairs backwards. (It makes me want to go see “Scary Movie” just to get some laughs at the expense of these clichés.) Still, one cannot deny the effectiveness of the picture. It is suitably creepy and atmospheric. It gets your hair standing on end rather reliably, and when they fire off the jolts, the audience jumps most satisfyingly.

This is the kind of movie that a guy would bring a girl to so that she could cling to him during the scary parts. (After the movie, as if on cue, one young woman was overheard saying, “That movie was sooo scary.”) And some of the scenes, particularly when Clair seems to be possessed by the spirit, have a real charge to them. The filmmakers line up all the elements: moody music, red herrings, mysterious allusions to troublesome past events, an anxious dog, eerie noises, and dark and stormy nights, then recruit our imagination and expectations to help them do the hard work of scaring us. “What Lies Beneath” does a terrific job of making us jump, then evaporates the minute you walk out of the theater (though I can’t guarantee that if you happen to live in an old house on a Vermont lake). It puts conventional psychological suspense thriller elements together with unconventional skill, and that makes it worth seeing. So take someone to clutch at during the scare moments, and dive in. (7/21/2000)