What Lies Beneath
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| What Lies Beneath | |
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 Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Robert Zemeckis |
| Produced by | Steve Starkey, Robert Zemeckis Jack Rapke |
| Written by | Sarah Kernochan, Clark Gregg |
| Starring | Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography | Don Burgess |
| Editing by | Arthur Schmidt |
| Distributed by | - USA - DreamWorks - non-USA - 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | July 21, 2000 |
| Running time | 130 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | ~ US$90,000,000 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
What Lies Beneath (2000) is a psychological horror film, that tells the story of a housewife who finds her home is haunted.
The film is directed by Robert Zemeckis and stars Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Diana Scarwid, Miranda Otto, James Remar, Joe Morton, Ray Baker and Wendy Crewson.
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[edit] Plot
Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) enters a new phase of her life after her daughter leaves home. With her husband, renowned scientist Norman (Harrison Ford), Claire is now living in a remodelled lakeside home in Vermont that once belonged to Norman's scientist father. However, when Claire meets her new neighbour Mary (Miranda Otto), she learns how terrified Mary is of her husband Warren (James Remar). And when Mary suddenly disappears, clues lead Claire to suspect that she was murdered by her husband.
So when strange events start occurring in her house, Claire is certain that Mary's ghost is haunting her. But as the events get more and more mysterious, and Mary then turns up alive, Claire is forced to probe the events of Norman's past in order to learn who is really haunting them, and how to put the ghost to rest.
As it turns out the ghost haunting Claire is in fact the mistress of her husband, Norman. He killed her a year before and now she wants to communicate with Claire about the truth of what happened to her. After Norman finds out that Claire knows his secret he drugs her and tries to drown her in the bathtub. However she is able to pull the plug and thus drain the tub. She gets up and finds her husband downstairs, unconscious (after he had smashed his head on the bathroom sink). A struggle ensues and they end up driving off a bridge. The mistress' ghost drags Norman down with her and allows Claire to escape.
In an epilogue, Claire is seen walking in a cemetery, where she places flowers on the mistress's grave, but not on Norman's. A silhouette of her face can be seen as the scene fades to black.
[edit] Cast
- Michelle Pfeiffer as Claire Spencer
- Harrison Ford as Dr. Norman Spencer
- Diana Scarwid as Jody
- Miranda Otto as Mary Feur
- James Remar as Warren Feur
- Wendy Crewson as Elena
- Ray Baker as Dr. Stan Powell
- Micole Mercurio as Mrs. Frank
- Katharine Towne as Caitlin Spencer
- Amber Valletta as Madison Elizabeth Frank
Robert Zemeckis used the crew to produce and direct What Lies Beneath during the hiatus (to allow Tom Hanks to lose some weight and grow his hair) of Cast Away.
[edit] References
The film features many references and homages to Alfred Hitchcock films, notably Psycho and Rear Window. An example is the final shot, which fades out from a graveyard to show a woman's face, just as the final shot of Psycho does. Film critic Roger Ebert noted in his review that he felt the problem with Zemeckis' desire to direct a Hitchcockian film was to involve the supernatural, which he believes to be something Hitchcock would never have done (in the Rosemary's Baby DVD featurette, it is mentioned that the film was offered to Hitchcock, and he declined because it involved the supernatural). It could, however, be claimed that Zemeckis' intention was to make a film with "Hitchcockian touches" rather than make an out-and-out Hitchcock pastiche. The Rear Window reference comes in the way Claire Spenser suspects her vaguely anti-social neighbour of killing his wife. The scene where she first meets the woman before her 'disappearance', peeking through a hole in a garden fence, is strongly reminiscent of the scenes where James Stewart spied on his neighbours apartment with a pair of binoculars in Hitchcock's masterpiece.
Another reference to Hitchcock's films is the soundtrack by Alan Silvestri, which is heavily reminiscent of the Bernard Herrmann scores featured in many of Hitchcock's most famous films.
In once scene Pfeiffer confronts Warren and accuses him of murdering his wife. Warrens' wife then appears, and he says "I didn't kill my wife." There is a noticeable glance between Remar and Ford immediately after he utters this line. This could be a reference to another Harrison Ford film The Fugitive, in which Ford famously speaks that exact same line.
[edit] Trivia
- The movie's faux Queen Anne-style house, built on the shore of Lake Champlain, stood in DAR State Park in the town of Addison, Vermont. It was built with all the trim of a real house on the site of the park's picnic pavilion. The park's stone pavilion was removed, the movie house built, then the pavilion restored after the movie wrapped. Several residents attempted to buy the house, but movie executives refused to sell. The entire house was scrapped and hauled to the dump. The nearby house of former Addison residents Mark and Mary Brady was originally intended to be the Spencers' residence. Negotiations between Hollywood lawyers and the Bradys broke down over compensation, and the Queen Anne built instead at far greater cost. The Spencers' neighbor's house was built for 3/4 views on the same park location. It was also razed.
- The dynamic truss-span bridge over Lake Champlain — linking Vermont and New York — that appears in the film several times, and especially at the end (called the Champlain Bridge and built in 1927), is now being studied by the NY and VT Transportation Departments. A project initiated in early 2007 will investigate options to address bridge condition and will consider both rehabilitation and replacement options.
- When Claire Spencer glimpses in the window of a quaint shop in Adamant, Vermont, the real setting is the village of Charlotte, VT, located off U.S. Route 7. In reality, Adamant is more than 40 miles from the setting of the movie, located near Montpelier, Vermont.
- The movie Me, Myself and Irene was filmed in the same area as What Lies Beneath. Both film crews were working near each other in the summer of 1999 in Addison County, Vermont.
- In TimeSplitters Future Perfect, the mission named What Lies Below is a reference to the name of the film.
- Kelly Clarkson's song Never again shot a music video with a similar story line.
[edit] Release and reaction
Budgeted at over $90,000,000, What Lies Beneath was released on July 21, 2000 and was met with mixed to positive reviews. However, it opened #1 at the box office, grossing just under $30 million. It continued strongly throughout the summer of 2000, and ended up grossing over $155 million in the United States, and nearly $300 million worldwide.
Director Zemeckis stated to Roger Ebert that he believed audiences wanted to know everything about a movie before they saw it, which is why the trailers for his year 2000 movies What Lies Beneath and Cast Away both revealed fundamental "spoilers" for the films. In the case of What Lies Beneath, the trailer tells of Norman's betrayal, which is a twist that is not revealed in the film until after an hour of red herring mis-direction.
[edit] External links
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