Actuakers One of my all time favorites.

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

SeeQuant Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Patience Watson One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

eliotkeith Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer are a couple in a beautiful house haunted by a ghost. Bob Zemeckis is a great director but this is one of his lesser efforts. There is nothing really wrong with the film except looking at the marquee names one would have expected more. It has ghosts, jump scares and spooky music- even great locations but it is better suited as a film made by a first time director not the guy who made Back to the future or Contact. Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer add allure to the star cast but you can clearly see by their motions they are pondering on when the cheque will clear.

petersonwilliam-45667 Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer are a couple in a beautiful house haunted by a ghost. Bob Zemeckis is a great director but this is one of his lesser efforts. There is nothing really wrong with the film except looking at the marquee names one would have expected more. It has ghosts, jump scares and spooky music- even great locations but it is better suited as a film made by a first time director not the guy who made Back to the future or Contact. Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfieffer add allure to the star cast but you can clearly see by their motions they are pondering on when the cheque will clear.

Leofwine_draca As the "haunted house" chiller seems to currently be in vogue, it comes as no surprise that all the big studios should jump on the bandwagon - after all, they're hoping for another SIXTH SENSE. This tale in particular is an old-fashioned ghost story free of the ludicrously poor CGI special effects which have ruined fare like THE HAUNTING remake. While it certainly passes the time and is well worth watching, be warned that this is no SIXTH SENSE. What it is, is a derivative thriller only worth watching due to the direction and actors involved.Firstly, the bad points. As is the case with a lot of films today, this film desperately needs some originality. The story of a woman being haunted in a house alone is a very old one indeed and WHAT LIES BENEATH is content to rehash a lot of the clichés we associate with haunted house fare - the ancient creaking door scene for one. Another flaw is the film's bloated running time - at two hours and ten minutes, this one will give you cramp and for no reason, either. Some subplots and scenes - such as the psychiatrist interludes - could happily be hacked from the script with little effect. A lot of the scenes in the film are needlessly prolonged, and some careful pruning could have added some excitement. Strangely enough, in the finale, the opposite occurs and about fifty mini scenes are packed into ten minutes - this is where all the excitement has been stored, and the sudden adrenaline rush seems a bit hurried and desperate in itself.Another problem is the so-called "horror" content. For me, this film works better as a thriller for many reasons. Every time there's a pause, or a potentially scary moment in this film, you just know things are building up to a jump scene, where somebody or something appears suddenly in the film and there's a loud burst of music on the soundtrack. The classic example of this would be somebody turning around and bumping into somebody else suddenly. This happens in WHAT LIES BENEATH a lot. A heck of a lot. While this kind of basic shock tactic works, it's just horror at its most simplistic and therefore rather disappointing. You won't find any of the creepiness of THE SIXTH SENSE around here.The acting from seasoned veterans Pfeiffer and Ford is excellent, as to be expected. With Pfeiffer you would expect nothing less, and it's refreshing to watch a respected actress appear in a film like this now that it's fashionable as opposed to the wealth of TV actresses appearing in such fare in a television format throughout the nineties. As for Ford, he plays a deliberately boring character for much of the film but really comes into his own towards the end; he's cast against type and great with it. As for the other actors, the underrated Joe Morton is wasted as a pointless psychiatrist while Diana Scarwid is an exceptionally irritating friend of Pfeiffer's. James Remar thankfully pops up to put in a nice imposing performance.Packed with red-herrings, lots of clichés, and enough references to Hitchcock to make you sick, this is a flawed but interesting film and a darn sight spookier than many previous offerings in the '90s. CGI is thankfully shoved aside in favour of more old fashioned scares, with the ugly computer animation only popping up a couple of times. One exceptional scene - this film's highlight - does for the bathtub what PSYCHO did for the shower, with a prone and paralysed Pfeiffer lying in a bathtub slowly filling with water. A horrific concept expertly done, immediately followed by the film's best scare. Other things to watch out for include plot holes (Pfeiffer retrieves a buried casket from underwater single-handedly), one moment of painful violence, and the crazy "chase" ending which really gets the adrenaline pumping. The ending of the film is predictable but effective. WHAT LIES BENEATH may not be a masterpiece in this particular genre, but it's well worth a watch.

Dragoneyed363 WARNING: I advise anyone who has not seen the movie yet to not read the comment.I had been overly interested in seeing What Lies Beneath for some time now. Having no idea what it was about, only that it was a Horror movie that had Michelle Pfiefer and Harrison Ford, but with the title and cast like it has and remembering it being a pretty big movie, that was enough for me to be thoroughly piqued. This movie delivers. I watched this late at night in my new apartment, all the lights out and was creeped out and spooked, which is not any easy task to accomplish with myself. What Lies Beneath is incredibly eerie and does a damn well job at making the audience uncomfortable in their seat. Like most comments say, this movie relies on shear fear and not bloody gore and cheap gimmicks. It is a masterpiece Thriller, even if the ghost story has been done to death now. That is not what is important to remember when watching WLB. The acting, the sets, the realness and utter scare value; those are what make this movie great and re-watchable.One scene in particular, when Michelle Pfiefer is in the bathtub paralyzed, about to drown, I found myself gasping for breath. It made me feel like I was drowning as well. She definitely plays a wonderful and believable role and is the star while Harrison Ford sits back and waits for his climactic moment. The doors opening and closing, faces in the mist with little to no background music to cause excellent build up. This is what makes movies scary and real. A fine tribute to slashers long before it like Halloween, WLB deserves more credit than it gets. Even if it is a ghost story, it is done just fine. The movie flows well. I never hear anyone talking about it anymore, and it is great! Don't know what more I could say about it. Give it another try if you found thyself hating it at first glance.