What Lies Beneath

''What Lies Beneath'' is a 2000 American supernatural horror thriller film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, with supporting performances from Diana Scarwid, Miranda Otto, James Remar, Joe Morton, and Amber Valletta. Its plot focuses on a woman who comes to suspect that the lakeside Vermont home she shares with her husband is haunted by a female ghost.

The original story for ''What Lies Beneath'' was written by Sarah Kernochan, inspired by a real paranormal experience she had. The project began development around 1998, with Clark Gregg making several alterations to Kernochan's original treatment, which he eventually developed into a feature-length screenplay. Principal photography took place on location in Vermont and on soundstages in Los Angeles, while director Zemeckis was taking a hiatus from filming his concurrent project, '' Cast Away'' (2000). It was the first film produced 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.

The film 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.

Plot

Former cellist Claire Spencer and her husband, Norman, a scientist and professor, live 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 observes that their new neighbors, Mary and Warren Feur, have a volatile relationship. When Mary disappears for several days, Claire suspects 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. 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 a woman's reflection in it.

Norman is dismissive of Claire's fear that their house is haunted and suggests she see a therapist to deal with her mounting anxiety. During a session, Claire mentions seeing a woman who bears a striking resemblance to her. Claire and her friend Jody hold a séance. Shortly after, she again finds the bathtub filled with water. A message reading "You're next" briefly, then "you know" appears on the foggy bathroom mirror, and her computer types the initials "MEF." Convinced that Mary's ghost is haunting her, Claire confronts Warren. Mary appears next to him, alive and well, shocking Claire.

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, and she notices a story on the back about a missing woman named Madison Elizabeth Frank, who bears a striking resemblance to her. Claire visits Madison's mother and secretly takes a lock of her hair.

Claire attempts to summon Madison's ghost. She becomes possessed by Madison's vengeful spirit 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. 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 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.

Though she and Norman seem to reconcile, Claire's suspicions return when she suggests visiting Adamant, and Norman pretends not to know the town. 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 claims that Madison killed herself and that, in a panic, he pushed her car into the lake with her body inside. He agrees to call the police, but suddenly attacks Claire and paralyzes her with halothane. Norman confesses that he murdered Madison when she threatened to expose their affair. 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, smashing his head against the sink and knocking himself out.

As the drug begins to wear off, Claire unplugs the drain and escapes drowning. As she tries to grab the phone, Norman regains consciousness and chases her. Claire flees in his truck with their boat attached, but Norman climbs inside 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. Madison's body floats up and appears to come to life, grabbing him. Claire escapes while Norman drowns. Madison's corpse returns to its lifeless state, drifting 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.

Cast

Production

Development

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. "I kept second-guessing the main character, and that kept me turning the page which when that happens, I have to consider it," Zemeckis recalled. "Secondly, there was an intelligence and kind of elegance to the writing and drawing of the characters. And there was an undercurrent of creepiness."

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.

Kernochan estimated that about "seventy-five percent" of her original screenplay was reworked by Gregg:

Casting

Harrison Ford signed on to star in the film in the summer of 1998, 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.

According to actress Amber Valletta, her character of Madison was not originally written to be a lookalike to Pfeiffer's, but this element was incorporated into the story after her casting because of the two actresses' shared resemblance.

Filming

''What Lies Beneath'' was filmed while production of ''Cast Away'' took a hiatus to allow Tom Hanks to lose weight and grow a beard. The majority of the film's crew was the same crew hired for ''Cast Away'': "You can't afford to hold a crew for a year so I took the same crew and rolled them onto ''What Lies Beneath'' and then rolled them right back onto ''Cast Away'', said Zemeckis. "We were paying people to wait for Tom anksto lose weight, so we made a movie in-between. We wrapped ''Cast Away'' in April, started ''Beneath'' in August, wrapped that in December then went back to Fiji in March so it worked out."

Principal photography began on August 23, 1999 in Addison, Vermont. Exteriors of the homes featured in the film were constructed on location, while interiors were shot on soundstages in Los Angeles.

Pfeiffer stated that shooting the underwater scenes were particularly difficult for her due to her fear of water: "It was awful. I took some scuba lessons because I was really uncomfortable in the water. Being in the bathtub was the worst because it was so confined and I think it was weeks in that bathtub, I'd be in there for 5 hours t a timejust laying there."

Release

DreamWorks Pictures released ''What Lies Beneath'' on July 21, 2000 in the United States and Canada. It was distributed by 20th Century Fox internationally.

Home media

DreamWorks Home Entertainment released ''What Lies Beneath'' on DVD in 2001. In 2021, Paramount Home Entertainment issued the film on Blu-ray.

On May 6, 2025, Scream Factory released the film in a 25th anniversary 4K UHD Blu-ray edition, featuring a new feature-length documentary about the making of the film.

Reception

Box office

''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.

According to 20th Century Fox executive Bill Mechanic, despite the film's significant box-office gross, it was only marginally profitable for the studio: " t wasI guess the seventh or eighth biggest movie of the year. tbarely made a profit, because it was expensive to make. A lot of the back end of the movie goes off to the talent. What's left for two studios to split up is fairly minimal. So there's a big hit that has nothing to pay for a loss, barely enough to pay for your overheads and the cost of operations."

Critical response

''What Lies Beneath'' received mixed reviews from film critics at the time of its release. 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, emeckiszaps 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 endZemeckis 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's 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's decision to involve the supernatural, a device Ebert felt Alfred Hitchcock never would have done.

Accolades

Remake

The film was unofficially remade in India as '' Raaz'' and released in 2002.

See also

* List of ghost films

References

Sources

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External links

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{{Authority control

2000 horror films
2000 psychological thriller films
20th Century Fox films
American ghost films
American haunted house films
American mystery thriller films
American psychological films
American psychological thriller films
American supernatural horror films
American supernatural thriller films
DreamWorks Pictures films
English-language thriller films
Films about adultery in the United States
Films about amnesia
Films about cellos and cellists
Films about lookalikes
Films about marriage
Films about memory
Films about mental health
Films about psychiatry
Films about scandalous teacher–student relationships
Films about scientists
Films about security and surveillance
Films about spirit possession
Films directed by Robert Zemeckis
Films produced by Robert Zemeckis
Films scored by Alan Silvestri
Films set in country houses
Films set in Vermont
Films set on lakes
Films shot in Los Angeles
Films shot in Vermont
ImageMovers films
Séances
2000s American films
2000s English-language films
2000s ghost films
2000s psychological thriller films
2000s supernatural films
2000s thriller films