What Lies Beneath
January 15th, 2020
Lies, sex, death, and just a little paranormal activity. Just one mistake, if big enough, can cause chaos long after it seems the dust has settled, the storm has passed, or even water has washed it away. Decisions can come back to haunt a person if they’re not careful. . .or innocent. In this two hour gem, the innocent and guilty are determined while the audience is left holding their breath.
And, they aren’t the only ones.
The seemingly perfect life of Claire Spencer, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, becomes a question of sanity in this 2000 supernatural horror film when strange things start happening inside her home. From broken picture frames to realizations from beings beyond the grave, Claire’s world gets turned upside down, and even her faith in her loving husband, Norman (Harrison Ford), is stretched to the breaking point when he doesn’t see the things she is seeing.
The film starts out with Norman and Claire dropping off their daughter to her first year of college, leaving them all alone in their house together. Although spending time together isn’t a problem for the two of them, all of Claire’s free time while Norman is working leads her curiosity to spike around the never-ending bickering of the younger couple next door. While snooping around the shared fence, a frightening conversation with the neighbor girl leaves Claire even more on edge about what could possibly be going on.
It doesn’t help when things start happening inside her house for no apparent reason after this encounter, and her neighbor is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Norman and Claire’s close friend, Jody (Diana Scarwid), grow concerned when Claire’s “empty-nest syndrome” leads her to throw murder accusations around. Fearing that history may repeat itself and end up taking Claire this time, Norman demands she seek professional help. Jody, wanting to help, even indulges Claire in her suspicions that some entity is living in her house by trying to contact the spirit with a Ouija board. For Jody, she gets to leave at the end of the night. For Claire and Norman, this is all just the beginning.
The film closely resembles the concept of the movie titled Gaslight – a story of a young newlywed manipulated into thinking she’s going insane – but What Lies Beneath takes on a paranormal element to differ from the 1944 psychological-thriller. The story behind this film came from writers Clark Gregg and Sarah Kernochan with Gregg going on to rewrite the screenplay for DreamWorks. Director Robert Zemeckis was signed on for the project and soon signed his first and only choices for the lead roles, Harrison and Pfeiffer. The film was also the first major film role for supermodel Amber Valletta, more recently known for her work on the hit TV show Revenge.
The movie was uploaded onto Netflix earlier this month with numerous others as part of the new month and new year. With the brilliant performances by Pfeiffer and Ford and the directing style of Zemeckis, it’s a nail-biting, detective-playing, keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat mystery that will have you drawn until the very end.
Lies, sex, death, and just a little paranormal activity. Just one mistake, if big enough, can cause chaos long after it seems the dust has settled, the storm has passed, or even water has washed it away. Decisions can come back to haunt a person if they’re not careful. . .or innocent. In this two hour gem, the innocent and guilty are determined while the audience is left holding their breath.
And, they aren’t the only ones.
The seemingly perfect life of Claire Spencer, played by Michelle Pfeiffer, becomes a question of sanity in this 2000 supernatural horror film when strange things start happening inside her home. From broken picture frames to realizations from beings beyond the grave, Claire’s world gets turned upside down, and even her faith in her loving husband, Norman (Harrison Ford), is stretched to the breaking point when he doesn’t see the things she is seeing.
The film starts out with Norman and Claire dropping off their daughter to her first year of college, leaving them all alone in their house together. Although spending time together isn’t a problem for the two of them, all of Claire’s free time while Norman is working leads her curiosity to spike around the never-ending bickering of the younger couple next door. While snooping around the shared fence, a frightening conversation with the neighbor girl leaves Claire even more on edge about what could possibly be going on.
It doesn’t help when things start happening inside her house for no apparent reason after this encounter, and her neighbor is nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Norman and Claire’s close friend, Jody (Diana Scarwid), grow concerned when Claire’s “empty-nest syndrome” leads her to throw murder accusations around. Fearing that history may repeat itself and end up taking Claire this time, Norman demands she seek professional help. Jody, wanting to help, even indulges Claire in her suspicions that some entity is living in her house by trying to contact the spirit with a Ouija board. For Jody, she gets to leave at the end of the night. For Claire and Norman, this is all just the beginning.
The film closely resembles the concept of the movie titled Gaslight – a story of a young newlywed manipulated into thinking she’s going insane – but What Lies Beneath takes on a paranormal element to differ from the 1944 psychological-thriller. The story behind this film came from writers Clark Gregg and Sarah Kernochan with Gregg going on to rewrite the screenplay for DreamWorks. Director Robert Zemeckis was signed on for the project and soon signed his first and only choices for the lead roles, Harrison and Pfeiffer. The film was also the first major film role for supermodel Amber Valletta, more recently known for her work on the hit TV show Revenge.
The movie was uploaded onto Netflix earlier this month with numerous others as part of the new month and new year. With the brilliant performances by Pfeiffer and Ford and the directing style of Zemeckis, it’s a nail-biting, detective-playing, keep-you-on-the-edge-of-your-seat mystery that will have you drawn until the very end.
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