Intense, gripping, stylish and poignant

How sad is this?

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Michelle Pfeiffer suspects her neighbor ha been murdered, ALA "Rear Window," but then begins to suspect her now missing neighbor's ghost is haunting her. Did her creepy neighbor James Remar kill her? Is her research scientist husband Harrison Ford somehow involved in her disappearance? Is she losing her mind? Pfeiffer and Ford make attractive leads, and slick direction by Robert Zemeckis that echos Hitchcock was enough to hold my interest, but this should have been a much better film.

What Lies Beneath goes through a two hour period of no ambiance, or at least it feels that way. Michelle Pfeiffer's wife to scientist Harrison Ford believes their house is haunted by a single ghost. For the majority of this film we're led down a path of tense scares and frights, which are conjured from thin air. Robert Zemeckis knows how to add these unbearable moments without us really knowing what they're about. Pfeiffer puts in a stellar performance as the jittery, mentally unbalanced wife, whereas Ford's as wooden as a tree trunk, not giving a hoot about his wife's slowly deteriorating health. What Lies Beneath is a very thrilling thriller, with the bathtub scene (no, not sexual in any way) likely to stick to the mind for a long, long time.

Not much needs to be said about this over-familiar story of a woman harassed by ghosts in her new lakeside house except that the performances are quite good and the budget greater than a much better horror story like "Carnival of Souls." Michelle Pfeiffer is beautiful, as always, but the role itself is written strictly by the numbers. She's the helpless victim that no one believes, from any Lifetime Movie Network film of your choice. I don't know why they hired Harrison Ford to be the stereotypical husband. It must have cost them a good deal. But, like other husbands in these flicks, he's a workaholic, skeptical, down-to-earth, and puzzled by Pfeiffer's claims. (He sends her to a shrink.) What a waste of money. Any one of dozens of professional B-level Canadian men could have done the job as well.But why go on? You've seen every second of it before, in one or another film about haunted women in haunted houses. There has to be a best friend who half-believes too, and who tries to help. They usually die. I didn't sit around long enough to see if Diana Scarwid, a fine actress, dies.The musical score borrows heavily from two sources: "Psycho" and "The Shining." There is a loud WHOOSH or a WHAM and a piping shriek from Pfeiffer whenever a gust brushes through the shrubbery or the door slowly and ominously creaks open. (The family dog comes in.) The movie never misses a shot, no matter how cheap the thrill.Pfui.

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.