Stars: Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Joe Morton, Miranda Otto, James Remar, Diana Scarwid, Ray Baker

Director: Robert Zemeckis

Summary: Claire and Norman Spencer seem to be a relatively 'normal' couple until Claire starts to hear voices and sees the reflection of a woman in water. After visiting a therapist she tries to make contact with whatever or whoever is out there...

Robert Zemeckis takes a page right out of Hitchcock and runs with it in the spooky supernatural thriller WHAT LIES BENEATH. Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford) and his wife, Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer), seem to have the perfect life: a loving marriage, a daughter just entering college, and a beautiful home on the water in Vermont. But what lies beneath this idyllic existence are secrets that will rip everything apart.
Dr. Spencer is an award-winning scientist whose work is threatening to consume his life; meanwhile, his wife is trying to deal with empty-nest syndrome now that her beloved daughter has gone off to college. Strange things start happening around the house, and Claire starts believing that the man next door murdered his wife and that the wife is trying to contact her from beyond the grave. Dr. Spencer is worried that Claire needs psychological help; he refuses to believe that their house is haunted. But as more and more dangerous events unfold, a frightening truth threatens to destroy everything.
Robert Zemeckis's modern-day ghost story trembles with threatening close-ups, a powerful musical score--and lots of terror. And it does for bathtubs what Alfred Hitchcock did for showers.

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What would Hitchcock have done if he had had modern digital effects? The answer is almost certainly: something very like What Lies Beneath, Robert Zemeckis' technically accomplished supernatural thriller that pays open homage to Suspicion, Rear Windowand Psycho, to name but three. Michelle Pfeiffer delivers one of the finest, most nuanced performances of her career as a woman in an ideal relationship whose perfect life begins to unravel with terrifying consequences. Harrison Ford plays sympathetically against type as her husband who may or may not be telling her the truth. Although made in the middle of his filming Cast Away, while the director waited for Tom Hanks to shed some pounds, this is no quickie throwaway picture. Zemeckis loads this character-driven story with genuinely scary suspense, using subtle camera moves, mirrored reflections and red-herrings in a classic Hitchcockian manner--the difference here is that he has access to the most up-to-date digital effects and employs them with characteristic imagination, creating seemingly impossible camera angles that only enhance the tension. The Production Design is equally carefully considered, as even the idyllic household setting with its pristine bathroom is gradually transformed into an object of terror. Composer Alan Silvestri's score winds up the drama several notches further with an appropriate Bernard Herrmann pastiche.

On the DVD: The principal attraction of this disc is the pin-sharp anamorphic picture and 5.1 soundtrack--superb picture and sound quality contribute greatly to the enjoyment here, since Zemeckis is one of the few contemporary directors who remains acutely sensitive to the composition of each and every scene. The brief featurette is a little misleadingly titled, as it's essentially a profile of Zemeckis' career with a few comments about this film thrown in for good measure. The rather dry and uninvolving commentary is by Zemeckis with producers Steve Starkey and Jack Rapke. --Mark Walker

Aspect Ratio:	2.35 Wide Screen, 16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	Feature Audio Commentary By The Director Robert Zemeckis, Featurette Constructing The Perfect Thriller, Cast And Crew Biographies, Production Notes, Original Theatrical Trailer
Subtitles:	Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish
Year:	2000
Release Date:	September 17, 2001
Runtime:	125 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	20021 D V D
Keywords:	Beneath, General, Wide, Screen, What, Lies, Thriller, Horror, Occult, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Horror/Occult