What lies beneath WHAT LIES BENEATH? Well, ol' Father Geek is here with 2 of our long time reviewer's impressions of Harrison Ford's latest effort, or lack of... depending on how it strikes you. This supposed suspense-thriller with the 1st time teaming of Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer by Oscar-winning Director Robert Zemeckis has all the ingredents for a successful genre flick; a mysterious woman's wraithlike image haunting their home, betrayed love, strange and sinister voices, a great team of Oscar-honored behind-the-scenes collaborators, etc... etc... BUT...
CAPONE
Hey, Capone in Chicago here with my review of the latest from Robert Zemeckis, WHAT LIES BENEATH with Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Be warned, I may drop some spoilers on you here out of necessity. But let me start by saying that I hate trailers: the trailer for WHAT LIES BENEATH ruins certain major plot points of this film. It tells you who in the story you should fear and what that person did to make them a suspect in the criminal activities of this film. If the trailer starts running at any more you attend in the near future, close your eyes and cover your ears. You've been warned.
It has been a full 12 hours since I saw this film and I'm still torn about how I feel. The mere fact that I'm still thinking about it should say something, I guess. There were things about this movie that I absolutely loved, and other things that annoyed the piss out of me. There's nothing I enjoy more than the old bait and switch routine. Hitchcock perfected it, and others have done it successfully over the years. Robert Zemeckis (or more precisely, character actor turned screenwriter Clark Gregg) baits and switches seemingly endless times.
The movie opens with Pfeiffer and Ford taking their daughter to college, thus leaving them alone in their house for the first time since they were married. The daughter is actually the product of Pfeiffer's first marriage to a musician who now dead (by what means I can't remember, nor does it matter). Ford is a successful research scientist at a university in New England as was his even more famous father. He is on the verge of finishing a major paper, which requires him to spend endless hours at the office, leaving Pfeiffer alone in their vast home.
The films first 30 to 40 minutes are a REAR WINDOW-style (or in this case, rear fence) mystery, as a bored Pfeiffer spies on her new neighbors, a troubled couple who fight a lot. Around the same time that the next-door wife seemingly disappears, Pfeiffer starts experiencing poltergeist-like activity in her house. Doors won't stay shut, photos fall from ledges, and finally she starts seeing the image of a pretty blonde woman in reflections in fogged-up mirror and in the water of a full bath tub. So far I am totally digging this movie. Pfeiffer and Ford have a good and believable chemistry, and there are some genuine thrills generated when Pfeiffer is alone in the house. There are a few too many fake shocks accompanied by the appropriate music cue (the dog jumps through a door, extra loud phone ringing, etc.), but it still works for me at this point.
Anyway, eventually Pfeiffer discovers that in fact the next door wife is alive and well, and WE discover that the last 30 to 40 minutes have very little to do with the actual story. Except for one small thing, the blonde ghost is still causing trouble in the house. Pfeiffer begins to see a psychiatrist (the always reliable Joe Morton), believing that maybe she's suffering from some kind of empty-nest syndrome, but she soon realizes that the ghost is real and she sets out to find out who she is and why she's bugging her.
At this point, the movie becomes more of a STIR OF ECHOES-style ghost story/murder mystery, and I probably should stop talking about the 8,000 twists and turns the story takes from this point. The movie really belongs to Michelle Pfeiffer; she's in every scene in this film and it's a solid performance from a gifted actress who's been choosing godawful films lately. Harrison Ford, despite his top billing, isn't really in the film that much, at least not until the final third, but it's a very different role than we're used to seeing him in and I appreciated that. (If you've seen the spoiler-ridden trailer, you already know what I mean.)
The script is good, but it takes so damn long to get the actual meat of the story that some people might stop caring before we get there. I was borderline. And there's a section of film toward the end where Pfeiffer is paralyzed in a bathtub filling up with water that has some of the most poorly written dialogue I've ever heard. The sequence should have been silent except for the sound of running water. As I'm sitting here writing this, I realize that I did get kind of sick of all the trickery in the screenplay. It was cool to find out that the next-door wife wasn't dead because you became extra-baffled by the ghost, but after a couple more exercises in misdirection, I got bored. The movie also feels long at 2 hours and 15 minutes, and has an all-too familiar and obvious climax.
As you can tell, I'm still not entirely sure what my final feelings are on this movie. If you are jaded by Hollywood's lame attempts to scare us with digital effects (THE HAUNTING) then perhaps you'll appreciate the simplicity of WHAT LIES BENEATH. I promise you that it will scare you in small ways and have you creeping toward the edge of your seat a few times. I only wish the screenplay had been pared down a bit and not had so many false endings piled on top of each other. I don't know. Michelle Pfeiffer is wet a lot in the movie from multiple bath and shower scenes, and from walking in the rain a lot. And that has to count for something, people. Oh, just go see the damn thing and yell at me later for telling you to.
Capone
Bishop Don "Mack" Donald
What Lies Beneath by The Bishop Don "Mack" Donald
Returning to his macabre roots, director Robert Zemeckis brings forth WHAT LIES BENEATH. A perfectly average horror/thriller film that clings to it’s empty premise by providing arid scares and zero thrills. Not grotesque enough to be disturbing, yet nowhere near compelling enough to be truly frightening. In this generation, where SCREAM and THE SIXTH SENSE rule this particular genre, BENEATH is a good example of trying too hard to please the current finicky audience by giving them something they’ve already seen.
By explaining the plot, I would be giving away crucial elements that WHAT LIES BENEATH needs to really work at an optimum level. Unfortunately, the promotional materials have already given away about two of the BENEATH twists. I’ll just stick with the basics: Norman (Harrison Ford) and Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) live in a sumptuous lakeside home in Vermont. While Norman is away at work trying to achieve the success that his father bathed in, Claire is stuck in the home, trying to overcome her empty nest syndrome after her daughter leaves for college. In the house all by herself, Claire is visited by a ghost that seems to be taking turns terrifying her and asking for her help. Claire, fearing mental illness, tries to figure out why the ghost has chosen to haunt her.
At 125 minutes, WHAT LIES BENEATH is overlong and overblown. In the 1960’s and 70’s, horror and thriller pictures often took their time creating genuine mood and suspense, always starting small and building bigger and bigger. BENEATH starts off big, gets very small, then, in an excessive attempt to leave the paying crowd with a feeling of getting their money’s worth, features a climax that drags the picture over the two hour mark when it should have barely clocked in at 80 minutes. In it’s heart, WHAT LIES BENEATH is a schlocky, grade Z type of thriller that somehow ended up an expensive, superstar driven, first class new motion picture. The sheen of perfectionism ruins the fun, and the editor-phobic Zemeckis makes the action drag out way too long.
Having been one of the creative producers and often contributor to the late 80’s, early 90’s horror anthology TALES FROM THE CRYPT, Zemeckis is clearly working with material that would have been far more effective on that particular show (which itself spawned two feature films). A director with an impressive filmography (FORREST GUMP, BACK TO THE FUTURE, CONTACT), Zemeckis’s BENEATH bears more than a slight similarity to his 1993 dark comedy DEATH BECOMES HER. Both films share an affinity for good, if overused, special effects and also are grounded in truly ghastly material, with DEATH aiming for the funny bone, and BENEATH going instantly for chills. I like this side of Zemeckis, and BENEATH - in it’s early moments - suggests that the filmmakers are here to play. That feeling wears away once the story begins to get top-heavy with awkward coincidences and crudely integrated backstory. Backstory which can only be intended to justify the film’s climatic pandemonium.
Zemeckis is also very determined to scare the audience, often reaching far and wide to deliver "Dolby Jolts" and other cheap sound effect scares. It’s a tried and true practice in these films, but nothing aggravates more than when a director seems to have nothing more up his sleeve other than a couple of cheap shocks. Not much adds up in BENEATH to create the rich mood a horror film needs, simply because Zemeckis tires the material out with endless jolts.
What the screenplay is lacking for Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer are real characters and semi-believable motivations for their actions. What Claire suffers through and what Norman eventually resorts to are the results of very thins strands of logic. I know most people (myself included), understand that believability should never come into question in a horror film, but BENEATH plays hard and fast with it’s story in such away that to deconstruct it would be futile. We shouldn’t have to think about BENEATH’s plausibility, but the film is such a big production that you cannot enjoy BENEATH the way it should be enjoyed: in a Saturday afternoon, double-feature matinee way.
It’s nice to see Harrison Ford in something that requires more than a passing grunt. His performance in BENEATH isn’t among his best, but at least his voice rises above a whisper. It’s really Pfeiffer’s film, and she carries it nicely. Running through the typical breath-hard-and-scream horror maneuvers, she is the only one in the cast who seems to have a clue how the plot will factor her in for the climax. The same cannot be said of Ford.
I will not blow the ending for you, but BENEATH could have closed up shop quickly on a disturbing note, very reminiscent of the 1988 George Sluizer film THE VANISHING. It doesn’t though. It keeps going for another 20 minutes until you are silly with contempt. Robert Zemeckis is a real talent, a man responsible for some of the best films of the late 20th century, but his WHAT LIES BENEATH is a poor excuse for a suspense film. Hopefully the next time he decides to return to his exploitation roots, he’ll know when to say "uncle" and let the audience leave the theater begging for more. -- 4/10
