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What Lies Beneath

What Lies Beneath

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Triumph! One Of The Most Terrorfying Films Ever Made!
Review: What Lies Beneath is by far the scariest movie I've ever seen. Movies like the Scream trilogy and The Haunting just don't hold the candle to What Lies Beneath. This movie actually scared me, unlike most scary movies do.

In the film, Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford play Claire and Norman Spencer, a typical American couple who are grieving over their daughter who has just left for college. Claire soon discovers that her house is being haunted by the ghost of a young woman. She suspects it is the ghost of the woman who lives next door, and that her husband had murderer her. But she is soon proven wrong, and when she discovers the terrorfying truth, things take a turn for the worst.

Robert Zemeckis is brilliant. When I discovered that he was the same director that did Forest Gump, I was shocked. The sets, the acting, and the story were just great. Everything about this movie was great. Take the house,for instense. In the daylight, it looks like the perfect dreamhouse, but give the right lighting and shoot it from the right angle and you can make it look monsterous, scary even. This was an odd role for Harrison Ford. I always thought of Harrison Ford as the more heroic type, not the bad guy. But he's god at it nonetheless.

All in all, What Lies Beneath is a fantastic film. The balance of the twists and surprises are what make it so great. What Lies Beneath is just one of those classic films that proves that you don't need to over do it with big special effects, blood, and gore to make a good horror film.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mildly Scary, Very Good First Half Hollywood Ending Ruins It
Review: This film has some very scary moments especially during the first half. Zemeckis, which is a director who is known for really showing off his talent (Forrest Gump, Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit), or for his half-baked films (Contact, Death Becomes Her). Here, he makes a terrifically spooky first half but then goes wrong with the typical Hollywood ending. The first 70-min. or so are filled with neat horror tricks and almost all of them work. If Zemeckis would have kept this up he would of made a great horror film but instead goes totally off the wall in the second half. Either the film was an ode to Hitchcock or Zemeckis really liked his film and filled the screenplay with these in-jokes. For example, in the beginning Michelle Pfeiffer thinks that her neighbor has just killed her wife, that is the classic plot from 'Rear Window' and there is even a scene where Pfeiffer stands in the window with huge binoculars. Second, all those elements of dead people's spirits taking over the spirits of the living just to deliver messages is pure 'Vertigo' paranoia. And is it a coincidence that Harrison Ford's character is named Norman? or that the climax of the film takes place in the shower?, all these are elements of Hitchcock's 'Psycho'. I found all this inside stuff really amusing but Hitchcock would have never based his plot completely on supernatural elements, he would of gone for the psychological explanation or of the unexpected criminal mind. But we should never expect any other director to 'be' like Hitchcock, that would be a grave mistake. Michelle Pfeiffer gives her best performance since 'Batman Returns' and is very good and effective in her role, I sensed a kind of Mia Farrow paranoia from 'Rosemary's Baby'. Harrison Ford on the other hand was an odd choice to play an unlikable character, we're used to see him play the hero. Now for the disappointing second half, you can see the final conclusion a mile away but what you can't see is that the movie's 'climax' is almost a half-hour long which can't be good, nothing turns out good if you drag it for too long. There is a tense scene in the bathtub where Michelle Pfeiffer is struggling for her life, you can see that Zemeckis made it with the purpose of it to be a classic scene that would be remembered for years to come. While it is tense and suspenseful it is far from 'classic'. And also near the end the heroine makes mistakes that would only be made in 'slasher films' like stopping the car to make a phone call while being pursued by a maniac. And the very last scene where we get to see the ghost was unnecessary and it feels like they only put it there to make us feel we got our money's worth. It is not essentially a bad film, but it had a lot of potential and could have made for a memorable spook-fest. From a scale of 1-10 I give this film a 5!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What Lies Beneath
Review: THIS WAS THE BEST MOVIE I EVER SAW I WAS SUPRISED IT WAS RATED PG-13 IT WAS SO SCARY THIS WAS MY MOST-FAVORITE MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE YOU HAVE TO SEE IT, IT IS A MUST SEE, (like titanic was a must see) THIS WAS BETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Goose bump scary!
Review: I saw this movie a second time and it was still scary! It gave me goose bumps and raised the hair on the back of my neck. I covered my eyes most of the time. The whole audience was on edge and screaming. The acting was great and the music suspenseville. The music reminded me of "Jaws". The music was not over done like I've been reading about lately, it did not let you know when something was about to happen. That's why people get so scared, you don't know when something is going to happen and then the music takes off! The preview only gives a taste to what the movie is about, the end will surprise you. Harrison Ford was outstanding and was nice to see him in a change of character. Plus without his shirt on! The man still has it in his 50's. A must see movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat the entire time. I still can't take a bath because of this movie!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: what lies beneath
Review: I saw this movie twice and the second time it still scared the hell out of me! My friend did'nt want to see it alone so I went again. I still got goose bumps up my arms and at the back of my neck during the second time. The whole audience was screaming, even grown men. The music was so suspenseville like Jaws but not so much you knew something was going to happen, in fact the scariest parts happened and then the music took off! The acting was great by all actors and Harrison Ford still looks hot with his shirt off for his 50's. I cant even take a bath because of this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Endless Chills And surprises at every turn!
Review: an all out jump at you kind of thrills is what kept this film going for me. Harrison Ford And Michelle Pifier star in this tense horror/suspesful film about a husbend's ilicit affair with a student comes back from the dead and haunts he and his family. Amazing twists and turns This has to be Harrison Ford's best acted film since "The devil's own" as for Michelle Piffer she still has the looks and charm in my opioin she pretty much carried the film from the begining right to the stunning conclusion. Has to go down as one of the best films this year.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Scariest Movie Of The Year!
Review: Although you can figure out 75 % of the plot of this nifty little thriller in the trailer, it is still worth your time. The acting is marvelous and Michelle Pfiefer is really believable in her character. The film is basically about Claire (Pfiefer) and strange things that start happening around her which force her to believe that a ghostly presence is in her home. The first half of the film leaves you guessing who the ghost actually is, and the second half is discovering why they died. There are many extremely well done scenes of suspense in this film, along with a climax (although a bit drawn out) that will leave you breathless with shock and intensity. This film is kind of like a really creepy "The Sixth Sense" with a few more elements of mystery thrown into the mix. For a final note: this is an awesome date movie b/c it is nearly impossible to sit through this whole movie without grabbing onto someone...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Movie
Review: What Lies Beneath was an excellent movie. i saw two days ago in the theaters and i was very surprised of how good it was. it made you think it was going to be one way but then it turned in a completely different direction. the ending was even better! this is the best movie i have seen in a long time.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Scary But...
Review: A well done thriller that IS scary, but the ending is over the top and drags just a trifle in the middle. Very good, worth seeing, but the end could have been better.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Don't Believe the (Bad) Hype!
Review: I only subtracted a star because HF didn't have enough screen time (but for me, he never can!)

MAN, the media has been rough on this flick. Most reviewers went out of their way to say it was boring, stupid, un-original, a waste of time, Harrison Ford looks so old he should retire (more on that later), and one critic even went so far as to compare it to "Battlefield Earth" for Gods sake! Needless to say, I had such low expectations that I went by myself (not wanting to subject friends or family members after hearing how awful it was). I even considered skipping the first half because I heard Harrison Ford wasn't on screen much for the first hour. While WLB was not the scariest or most exciting movie of all time, I left the theater glad I saw it. Unfortunately for me, a careless reviewer gave away 99% of the 'twists' in the story line, and the trailers already gave 75% of it away anyway, so there was only one real surprise.

The surprise turned out to be that I actually had fun. I think everyone already knows the set-up and plot by now, so I won't bother with a sypnosis. I will say that every seat was full (another surprise) and there were more screams from the audience than I've heard during a movie in years. We're talking over a dozen times where half the audience yelped/jumped in shock and a handful of moments where everyone screamed. Loudly. We are talking adults here too, not nervous little kids. In all fairness, many of the jumps are the 'fake' kind that you are all too familiar with if you've seen enough horror/suspense films, i.e. "OH GOD! You almost scared me half to death sneaking up on me like that". The movie also frequently employs the device where a character is in frame, the camera pans along with them out of frame for a second, then we pan back and someone/something has suddenly appeared in the frame behind them-cheap shot, but it works. Many reviewers complained that the score was overdone, with a loud blast of music in the scare scenes to ensure everyone jumped. Honestly, I couldn't tell whether or not this was the case, because the audience's yelling covered it up! There is one *very* big unexpected jump-trust me, you'll know it when you see it-that will probably end up on a lot of 'scariest moments' lists, I am ashamed to say I SCREAMED at the top of my lungs like a little girl, and so did everyone else in the theater, including grown men. On the negative side, there are many cliche-d horror movie moments, and the dialogue wasn't exactly brilliant. There were scenes where they over-did the fore-shadowing to the point of insulting my intelligence. Example: "Call on the cell phone, we're running late" "Oh, the cell phone doesn't work" "That's right, the cell phone won't work in the middle part of this bridge." "Yes, I forgot about the fact that the cell ph--" OKAY! WE'VE GOT IT NOW! THANK YOU! So, the script could have used a polish, but not enough to ruin the movie. Another complaint I've heard is that the movie "rips off" Hitchcock's films (a collapsing character pulls a shower curtain down off the hooks with her, a character is named Norman, etc) but I do know the difference between a ripoff and a loving tribute, and Zemeckis knows what he's doing, I highly doubt he was trying to trick the audience into thinking these were his original ideas. For the record, Harrison Ford still looks great with his shirt off, better than some actors in their 30's. He has recently reached the point where he can not pass for a man in his early 40's, but compared with other actors in their late 50's, he still looks mighty fine, especially without that unflattering "angry brush" spiky hairstyle in his last couple of films. Let's just say there were plenty of women there with biiig smiles on their faces during the love scenes. When he gives that sexy crooked boyish grin, about 20 years instantly drop from his face, and...what was I saying again?

OK, enough rhapsodizing about Harrison Ford, back to the movie. Diana Scarwind as Claire's best friend is funny and lightens up the tone. Michelle Pfieffer is wonderful, making some of the corny dialogue sound genuine. Many less talented actresses would simply go into "woman in peril" mode, but her acting is very impressive, and even the critics who really hated the movie gave her credit for that. Oh, and speaking of aging well, there were plenty of males in the audience looking pretty happy during the love scenes too. So guys, if your date or wife votes to see this "chick flick", don't make her drag you- you'll have a much better time than you think. Sure, this movie is no all-time horror classic, but it is a fairly intelligent, entertaining, thrill ride of a movie that deserves a much better chance than the critics are giving it.


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