What Lies Beneath
There may be no such thing as perfection, but some movies get closer to cinematically perfect than you could possibly hope. This list of films is a short one: Back to the Future. Ghostbusters. The Fugitive. Submitted for your approval: What Lies Beneath as the latest addition.
Not that What Lies Beneath is exactly a new film; I was surprised to realize that the movie is now twelve years old. But brother does it hold up!
Like every haunted house film, What Lies Beneath picks and chooses from a stock list of cliches. Appliances turn on by themselves. Electrical lights don't work when you need them to. Faint whispers are heard from the corner of the ear. Strictly speaking, you could argue that What Lies Beneath is a big case of "been there, seen that."
But Roger Ebert is fond of saying that "a movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it," and What Lies Beneath is the perfect example. Yes, we've seen most of these elements before, in countless haunted house films, but rarely, if ever, have these elements been presented so skillfully. Every aspect of this film hits the perfect note: Actors Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, who play the happily married Norman and Claire Spencer, transcend their star personas to create a very believable married couple. They are aided by the under-rated writing team of Clark Gregg and Sarah Kernochan, whose dialogue perfectly captures the sound of two people whose clear mutual affection is informed -- but not tarnished -- by familiar routine. Together, these actors and writers really convince you that the characters exist.
The writers should also be praised for framing their ghost story with a compelling, intelligent mystery. Other ghost stories present us with passive victims, whose job is merely to react to the creepy events that surround them. Not Claire Spencer, Pfeiffer's feisty housewife who grows determined to figure out the ghost's identity, and whose investigation is thoroughly believable. Claire is neither an idiot nor a Sherlock Holmes, but an average woman who goes about her legwork and research pretty much the way you or I would.
When Norman convinces her to see a psychiatrist, the shrink is equally convincing as a real person. "Don't worry," Dr. Drayton (played by the always reliable Joe Morton) tells Claire. "I am required to see you for a minimum of three sessions, before I can have you committed." It's exactly the type of awkward, lame joke that a therapist might say. Dr. Drayton's character, who proves surprisingly open-minded toward Claire's assertion that her house is haunted, is especially interesting when contrasted with Claire's husband Norman, whose skepticism ostensibly stems from the fact that he is a research scientist. Yet Dr. Drayton is also a man of science, and is willing to believe or at least indulge Claire's claim that her house is haunted.
Cinematographer Don Burgess and director Robert Zemeckis capture all of this with beautiful camera work; every frame is a work of art. Zemeckis also works well with composer Alan Silvestri to create a non-intrusive, but highly effective musical score. Together, Burgess, Silvestri, and Zemeckis create a wonderful atmosphere of domestic tranquility punctuated by the creepy goings-on, and because we care about the characters in the center of it all, the events are that much more terrifying. But all of this is a long way of saying that What Lies Beneath is simply a fun, intelligent, scary horror flick. The movies don't get any better than this.
Not that What Lies Beneath is exactly a new film; I was surprised to realize that the movie is now twelve years old. But brother does it hold up!
Like every haunted house film, What Lies Beneath picks and chooses from a stock list of cliches. Appliances turn on by themselves. Electrical lights don't work when you need them to. Faint whispers are heard from the corner of the ear. Strictly speaking, you could argue that What Lies Beneath is a big case of "been there, seen that."
But Roger Ebert is fond of saying that "a movie is not about what it's about; it's about how it's about it," and What Lies Beneath is the perfect example. Yes, we've seen most of these elements before, in countless haunted house films, but rarely, if ever, have these elements been presented so skillfully. Every aspect of this film hits the perfect note: Actors Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer, who play the happily married Norman and Claire Spencer, transcend their star personas to create a very believable married couple. They are aided by the under-rated writing team of Clark Gregg and Sarah Kernochan, whose dialogue perfectly captures the sound of two people whose clear mutual affection is informed -- but not tarnished -- by familiar routine. Together, these actors and writers really convince you that the characters exist.
The writers should also be praised for framing their ghost story with a compelling, intelligent mystery. Other ghost stories present us with passive victims, whose job is merely to react to the creepy events that surround them. Not Claire Spencer, Pfeiffer's feisty housewife who grows determined to figure out the ghost's identity, and whose investigation is thoroughly believable. Claire is neither an idiot nor a Sherlock Holmes, but an average woman who goes about her legwork and research pretty much the way you or I would.
When Norman convinces her to see a psychiatrist, the shrink is equally convincing as a real person. "Don't worry," Dr. Drayton (played by the always reliable Joe Morton) tells Claire. "I am required to see you for a minimum of three sessions, before I can have you committed." It's exactly the type of awkward, lame joke that a therapist might say. Dr. Drayton's character, who proves surprisingly open-minded toward Claire's assertion that her house is haunted, is especially interesting when contrasted with Claire's husband Norman, whose skepticism ostensibly stems from the fact that he is a research scientist. Yet Dr. Drayton is also a man of science, and is willing to believe or at least indulge Claire's claim that her house is haunted.
Cinematographer Don Burgess and director Robert Zemeckis capture all of this with beautiful camera work; every frame is a work of art. Zemeckis also works well with composer Alan Silvestri to create a non-intrusive, but highly effective musical score. Together, Burgess, Silvestri, and Zemeckis create a wonderful atmosphere of domestic tranquility punctuated by the creepy goings-on, and because we care about the characters in the center of it all, the events are that much more terrifying. But all of this is a long way of saying that What Lies Beneath is simply a fun, intelligent, scary horror flick. The movies don't get any better than this.
posted by Movie Man at
4:50 AM
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