The Scare Salon

Bonus fun fact: the woman who wrote the original screenplay, Sarah Kernochan (a documentary filmmaker who won an Oscar for Marjoe in 1973), based the story on a reportedly real paranormal experience she had, although thankfully her story was a lot less murdery than the final film turned out.

While I don’t know that I’d call What Lies Beneath a straight horror movie, it definitely has a lot of horror elements and some genuinely creepy scenes that are still effective this many years later, at least in my opinion. It’s relatively long for a genre film (about two hours and ten minutes), it’s a bit slow-moving, the story isn’t dazzlingly original, and some of the CGI effects in the climax look pretty dated, but overall, I found this a really involving, spooky, elegant ghost story with an excellent lead performance by Michelle Pfeiffer and a rare chance to see Harrison Ford (spoiler alert) playing a villain.

And speaking of spoiler alerts, since this is an older movie, I will be discussing the plot in detail, including the ending, so if you haven’t seen What Lies Beneath, then go watch it before reading the rest of this review if you don’t want to know the resolution of the mystery. This is your one and only warning.

So we’re following a married couple, Claire and Norman Spencer (played by the aforementioned Pfeiffer and Ford). Information about them is slowly portioned out over the course of the first act, but we eventually learn that Norman is a hotshot genetic scientist whose dad was also prominent in the field. After the death of his father two years ago, Norman inherited a beautiful lake house in Vermont that he and Claire moved into and renovated. We also discover that Claire used to play the cello (presumably in a band or orchestra) but seems to have given it up and is now a stay-at-home wife.

At the beginning of the story, the couple’s daughter Caitlin (Katharine Towne) is heading off to college, and while both parents are naturally proud of her and happy they’ll now have the whole house to themselves, Claire in particular is clearly having some empty-nest type feelings and seems a bit at odds and ends. The fact that Norman is preparing for some big paper or conference and is working all the time isn’t helping much either, though he does seem to be down for some intimate time when he’s home; he’s distant, in other words, but not completely checked out.

And I’m not sure if this was revealed earlier in the movie, but Caitlin is actually not Norman’s biological daughter. I thought she was at first, so I don’t think the movie mentions it initially, but later in the story you find out that Caitlin is actually his stepdaughter; her real father was Claire’s first husband Michael, who died at some point in the past in undisclosed circumstances and is only mentioned once. Michael’s death doesn’t seem to factor into the plot at all (at least from what I noticed), but the fact that Caitlin is not Norman’s “actual” daughter sort of does a little bit (I guess).

It’s also eventually revealed that Claire was in a terrible car accident a year ago, and though she’s physically fine now, she seems to have some unresolved issues about it, namely not remembering much of what happened immediately before and after the crash. This ends up being important for several reasons, one of which is that friends and colleagues are still treating her as though she’s fragile and messed up, so when she starts experiencing weird shit, people think it’s delayed trauma from the accident.

Anyway, Claire and Norman have new neighbors, a couple named Mary and Warren Feur (Miranda Otto and James Remar, respectively). They are academics at the same university Norman works at, but they’re in the psychology department, so he only knows them in passing. Both Norman and Claire see the couple arguing out in their yard on a couple of occasions, and sort of write it off as just a volatile relationship.

But one day when Claire is home alone and out in the garden, she hears Mary sobbing on the other side of the fence, and she asks what’s wrong. Mary appears mortified that someone heard her, and only says vague things about how she “can’t breathe” and she’s “suffocating.” Claire tries to get her to come over to talk about it, but a very squirrely Mary says she hears “his” car coming up the driveway and she’s gotta go.

From this bizarre encounter, combined with the frequent arguments she’s witnessed, Claire deduces (as most people would) that Warren is abusing Mary. This assumption seems to be confirmed when Mary herself disappears not long afterward.

Subsequently, all kinds of strange incidents begin to occur. The front door of Claire’s house keeps opening on its own, for example, and a framed newspaper clipping of Norman getting an award falls off a table, breaking the glass. While Claire is cleaning up the glass, she finds a small key down a heating grate, but doesn’t know what it opens.

Even more alarmingly, while she’s down on the dock playing ball with the dog one day, she swears she sees a woman’s face briefly, floating beneath the surface of the lake.

And then, one night while Norman is at work, Claire happens to be looking out the window and sees Warren loading something that looks for all the world like a body wrapped in plastic into the trunk of his car. When Norman gets home, Claire tries to show him what’s going on, but by that time, Warren’s car is gone and Norman thinks she’s imagining things.

Claire is convinced that Warren killed Mary, and is even starting to think that the paranormal phenomena in the house is Mary’s ghost trying to contact her. She goes over to the Feur house and knocks on the door, but Warren tells her that Mary isn’t there, and then Claire sees a woman’s shoe on the porch that has a spot of something on it that looks suspiciously like blood. Later on, she takes a basket of flowers and wine over there and then watches Warren through binoculars as he crabbily throws the flowers out and keeps the wine. It then looks as though Warren sees her watching him, and she freaks out.

Following an incident where the bathtub in her house seems to fill up on its own and Claire sees the reflection of a young woman bearing a striking resemblance to her in the water, an obviously irritated Norman suggests that Claire go see a shrink. The psychiatrist is understanding, and Claire does admit that she thinks her house is haunted and that she knows who the ghost is, but she (probably wisely) won’t tell him her suspicions regarding her neighbor. The therapist says that maybe she should try to contact the ghost and ask her what she wants. I didn’t get the impression that the psychiatrist believed she was seeing ghosts; I just think he was playing along to see if Claire could sort her own shit out.

Feeling a little foolish, Claire buys a ouija board and invites her best friend Jody (played by Diana Scarwid, who I immediately recognized from Mommie Dearest and Psycho III) over for a little séance. Jody, by the way, is an absolute hoot of a character; she’s only in a couple scenes, but she’s a lot of fun, and I wish she’d been in the movie a bit more.

So even though Claire has stolen the bloody shoe from the Feur house for the séance, nothing much seems to happen, other than a candle flame weirdly flickering out and both women getting jump scared by the family dog, Cooper. Jody goes home and they just laugh the whole thing off.

Not long after, though, Claire has a terrifying experience where the bathroom fills up with steam, she sees the reflection of the woman in the tub water again, and some writing on the mirror appears that says “You’re next” at first, then “You know.” Claire flees into the den/office, and notices that her computer screen is filling up with the letters “MEF.” Since her neighbor is named Mary Feur, she’s now certain that Warren is a murderer and Mary’s ghost is trying to communicate with her.

Right here, though, is where the movie throws us for a loop. Norman takes Claire to a university function, and an indignant Claire approaches Warren, accusing him in front of everyone of murdering his wife. Warren, who to his credit seems more befuddled than angry, asks what she’s talking about, and then calls Mary over. Yep, Mary Feur is alive and well, and now Claire looks even more like a delusional fruitcake who is probably not going to be invited to any more faculty parties.

Mary later comes over and is very understanding, explaining that the relationship between her and Warren is just so intense and extra that it overwhelms her sometimes, but is absolutely not abusive, though she realizes how it might look to an outsider. She says she disappeared because she went to visit her mother for a few days to get a bit of space, and the “body” that Claire thought she saw Warren loading into the trunk was just some of her stuff that he was driving up to her.

Now, either at the same party where Claire flipped out on Warren or at a later one, an older lady talks to Claire, asking if everything’s been all right with her. This lady remembers another party a year ago where Norman got that award (the one with the photograph in the frame that fell in the house), which also happens to be the party that took place right before Claire’s accident. The old lady remembers Claire being really upset that night and seeing something or someone that made her go suddenly pale, though Claire can’t really remember the details.

Later on, back at home, the same picture falls again, and this time Claire notices that on the back of the newspaper clipping about Norman is a brief story about a young woman who went missing around the same time as the party before Claire’s accident. The woman was a student at the school Norman works at, so Claire looks her up on the computer. Not only does the young woman look a lot like Claire and is obviously the same woman she’s seen in the bathtub, but the woman’s name is Madison Elizabeth Frank. MEF.

Claire goes to visit Madison’s mother, and while she’s there, she swipes a braided lock of Madison’s hair from the girl’s bedroom, planning to use it to contact the ghost.

Using a book on the occult that Jody has helpfully provided, Claire attempts to summon Madison, and this appears to work like gangbusters. When Norman comes home from work, Claire is acting all sultry and strange, and her eyes are green like Madison’s, rather than blue like Claire’s. She comes on to Norman strongly, and although Norman seems to think this is Claire being weird, he appears to go along with it, with some reservations, especially after Claire bites his lip hard.

As they’re making out on the floor, we see from Claire’s POV briefly as she glances over toward the front door, and she sees herself standing in the doorway, shocked and drenched from the rain. She isn’t really there; it’s just a vision.

Claire/Madison says some creepy shit to Norman like, “I think she’s starting to suspect something,” to which Norman replies, “Who?” and Claire/Madison says, “Your wife,” while flashing very intense green eyes at him, so Norman flips the fuck out (admittedly it is pretty freaky) and shoves her off him.

Claire appears to come back to herself, wondering what the hell just happened, but being possessed by Madison has jarred a memory that was lost in the accident. She remembers that a year ago, she found out that Norman was having an affair with Madison, who was one of his students. At the party from the photograph, she saw Madison, which is why she went pale. It’s then strongly implied that she became so upset that she left the party and deliberately drove her car into a tree, hoping to kill herself.

Norman tries to justify the affair by saying that he and Claire were having problems at the time, and that he was flattered that a young woman like Madison was paying attention to him, and blah blah blah. He says it was a mistake and that things just got out of control. Claire is righteously pissed, though, and screams at him to get out. He won’t, so she says fuck it and bugs out herself, driving over to Jody’s house for the night.

While she’s there, Jody tearfully tells Claire that she saw Norman and Madison together one time back then, in a café in a little town called Adamant, about seven miles away. She says that she didn’t think anything was suspicious at first, and was actually going to pop over and say howdy, but then they started arguing very much like a couple would, and she got weirded out and left. She apologizes to Claire, saying she should have mentioned it back then. Norman calls, but neither of them answer it, so he just leaves a message on the machine that he’s worried about Claire and wonders if she’s there.

The next morning, Claire goes back home and finds Norman unconscious in the bathtub alongside a plugged-in hair dryer. Unsure whether he tried to kill himself or whether Madison’s ghost attempted to kill him (more likely the second thing), Claire calls an ambulance, but after Norman gets checked out by the paramedics, he seems pretty much fine. An apparently contrite Norman says he believes Claire now about the ghost. Which…duh, Norm.

Claire asks if Norman had anything to do with Madison’s disappearance, and he shockingly admits it. He explains that he had been trying to end the affair but that Madison wasn’t having any of that, showing up at the house unexpectedly and threatening to kill herself, Norman, and/or Claire. Norman says he managed to get her to leave, but that she disappeared after that, with the implication being that she had either skipped town or gone off to commit suicide.

Later on, likely under the influence of the ghost, Claire goes out to the dock on the lake and gets pulled into the water by an invisible force. Her hands plunge into the sand on the bottom, and she sees something that looks like a wooden box with a kind of silver rose design on it. Before she can grab it, Norman pulls her out of the lake. Following this, Norman insists they have to get rid of the ghost once and for all because she’s dangerous, and he burns the lock of Madison’s hair in the fireplace.

This actually seems to work, as Claire says afterward that she can’t feel Madison’s presence anymore. Although she’s obviously not thrilled about finding out about the affair (which technically she knew about before but had forgotten because of the accident), Norman seems very sorry and willing to work on their marriage. Claire grudgingly goes along with him on a short day excursion in their boat, but it’s clear she still doesn’t trust him, because she casually mentions that they should go for lunch and antique shopping in that quaint little town of Adamant one day; has he ever been there? He says he hasn’t, which of course is a lie because Jody saw him there with Madison.

Still trying to get to the bottom of this whole shitshow, Claire goes to Adamant one day by herself, and peers into the window of an antique shop. There, she sees a wooden jewelry box exactly like the one she saw at the bottom of the lake, and what’s more, the rose design on it is exactly the same as the pendant on a necklace she saw Madison wearing in a photo of her she saw when she visited Madison’s mom. And as if all that wasn’t enough, the jewelry box also has a key exactly like the one she found in the heating grate near the beginning of the movie.

While Norman is asleep one night, Claire jumps into the lake and fetches the box, bringing it back to the house and opening it with the key. Inside, she finds the rose necklace, and when Norman comes down the stairs, she asks point blank if he killed her. Norman swears up and down that he didn’t, but his story has changed a little bit; whereas before he said she just disappeared and he doesn’t know where she went, now he admits that she was already dead when he got to the house, that she had overdosed in a suicide over losing him. Not wanting the personal and career fallout from everyone finding out about the affair, he says, he panicked and put her body into her car and pushed it into the lake. He then threw the jewelry box into the water too, where Claire found it.

Claire tells Norman coldly that he had better call the police and tell them all this, and a defeated Norman agrees that he will, calling and asking for an officer to come out. He then says he’s going upstairs to get dressed to prepare for the cops’ arrival.

Claire, still wisely suspicious of her terrible husband, creeps up the steps and finds the cordless phone, hitting redial on that bad boy. Sure enough, Norman didn’t call the police at all; he just called information and faked the whole thing.

The moment Claire realizes this, Norman appears behind her and doses her with halothane, a drug that was foreshadowed near the beginning of the movie during a scene at Norman’s lab. Essentially it suppresses all movement and muscle function while leaving awareness intact, so while Claire tries desperately to get away, eventually her body gives out on her and she can only stare in horror as Norman scoops her floppy ass up and plonks her in the bathtub, intending to fill it with water and make it look as though Claire drowned herself. He even calls Jody, blubbering that he and Claire just had a big fight, he was on his way to sleep at his office, and could Jody please stop by in the morning to check on Claire because he’s so, SO worried about her. Dude doesn’t miss a trick.

Oh, and he also does a bit of a mocking villain monologue, where he tells Claire that at first he thought she was just making up all the ghost shit as a bizarre, passive-aggressive way of telling him that she knew about the affair and the murder, but then he was incredulous when he realized she actually believed it. He also of course faked the whole “ghost threw the hair dryer into the tub and tried to electrocute me” incident too, but you probably figured that out. He kisses Claire as the tub fills up with water, and it’s pretty unsettling, especially since Harrison Ford doesn’t usually play cold-blooded psychopaths like this.

He then notices that Claire is wearing Madison’s rose necklace, and when he tries to take it off, there’s a fantastic jump scare where Claire’s face turns into Madison’s waterlogged corpse for a second. This startles Norman so much that he reels back and cracks his head open on the side of the sink and is down for the count (at least temporarily; villains never go down that easy in these kinds of movies).

Meanwhile, Claire is desperately trying to move her limbs so she can pull the drain out of the tub to keep herself from drowning, but the drug has rendered her almost entirely immobile.

Finally, after her head is submerged, Claire is able to move enough to pull the plug with her foot. Once she struggles to look over the lip of the tub, though, she sees that of course, Norman is gone, leaving only a bloody trail in his wake.

Claire manages to stagger to her feet and get to the upstairs phone, but the line is busy. She then sees that Norman has collapsed at the bottom of the stairs and the other phone is off the hook and underneath him. She wiggles it free, but Norman starts to move, so she decides to just get the fuck out of Dodge, grabbing the keys and running outside.

Initially she gets in her car, but then realizes that the keys she grabbed were for Norman’s truck (that still has the boat hitched to it), so she hurries over there and drives away. In the meantime, though, Norman has woken up and manages to climb into the attached boat before she takes off. He makes his way into the back of the truck and attacks her while she’s driving over the bridge, and in the melee the whole enchilada goes into the lake.

As both are trapped and water pours into the truck, Claire tries to talk Norman out of killing her by reminding him of their daughter Caitlin, but as I mentioned earlier, Caitlin is “only” his stepdaughter, so this angle doesn’t work, and he pushes Claire’s head underwater.

She glances down, though, and sees that the broken mast from the boat has disturbed another car at the bottom of the lake, which of course is Madison’s. The girl’s corpse floats up toward them, and in a somewhat sketchy CGI effect, comes to life and grabs Norman, pulling him into the depths while Claire is able to swim to safety. Norman drowns, and good bloody riddance.

In a brief coda, we then see Claire at a cemetery on a snowy day, placing a rose on Madison’s grave.

While What Lies Beneath isn’t going to win any prizes for innovation or originality, I thought it was a solid supernatural-themed domestic thriller with a pleasingly twisty mystery that’s doled out at a steady pace, some legitimately eerie sequences, and a bit of Hitchcockian flair. Michelle Pfeiffer’s Claire is a great, sympathetic protagonist that you can really root for, and while Harrison Ford’s Norman seems like an okay guy at first, small hints of assholery are slowly introduced until you become entirely convinced by the end that he’s capable of doing what he did. Because I’ve seen the movie before and thought I remembered that Norman was the bad guy, I was suspicious of him from the beginning, but if you didn’t know the twist, I feel like maybe you wouldn’t as readily guess that, because so much time and effort is put into the whole “Warren killing Mary” red herring. File alongside other domestic thrillers with supernatural elements, such as Stir of Echoes (1999), The Gift (2000), or Half Light (2006).

Until next time, keep it creepy, my friends.