Today’s Creeptober movie begins three days of haunted house stories. First up is a movie from 2000 that took me a little while to warm up to, but that I now enjoy quite a lot. Tonight we watch What Lies Beneath.
Reacting to What Lies Beneath
I say it took me a while to warm up to What Lies Beneath because I didn’t have much interest in it when it was released. I didn’t see it in theaters, and I didn’t make a point to check it out whenever it came out on DVD. Eventually though, I did end up giving it a chance years later. The first time I saw it I thought it was okay, but I wanted it to be scarier. After a few repeat viewings I started to appreciate the mystery more, and I found myself liking how strategically the scares are placed throughout the film. And now, yes, I do think What Lies Beneath is a very fine movie.
The influence of Hitchcock is very apparent. I mean, the first part of What Lies Beneath is clearly a riff on Rear Window (1954) with Claire spying on her neighbors and suspecting murder. It’s interesting that Claire’s suspicions about her neighbor possibly killing his wife aren’t resolved until about halfway through the movie. That feels like a long time for what essentially ends up being a red herring. But after watching the movie a few times, I could better see why the movie is structured like it is.
Norman’s reactions to Claire’s fears of a haunting consist mostly of mild annoyance and largely dismissive actions. That’s because Norman knows that Claire believes the ghost is the spirit of the woman next door, Mary. Norman doesn’t believe her, and he has no reason to. No reason except for, you know, being a good husband and believing his wife, but him disbelieving her and belittling her in front of their friends are also telltale signs that something is wrong. The point is, even if Claire is right and Mary is dead, Norman isn’t worried because he’s not involved in anything that might’ve happened to Mary.
Once everyone finds out that Mary is alive and Claire keeps investigating the ghost, Norman begins to lose his patience. Specifically, he gets truly angry for the first time when Claire shows him the picture of Madison. Him yelling at Claire the first time he is confronted with Madison’s picture quickly shifts the focus of suspicion onto him, even if members of the audience missed the more subtle hints earlier in the film. From there the mystery starts to unravel at a rapid pace.
I like how the supernatural element of the movie comes forward more in the second half of What Lies Beneath, but it never really takes over the dramatic elements of the mystery. The possession scene when Claire is taken over by Madison and gets aggressive with Norman nearly pushes a little too far into fully supernatural territory, but it’s still a good way to lead into Claire figuring out that Norman cheated on her.
Other than the possession though, the haunting parts of the story are spaced out well. That helps make the few jump scares in the movie more effective, and it allows the drama to feel more natural. Madison is leading Claire to the truth, but Claire has to put it together herself. Of course, a couple of well-timed appearances by spooky Madison help save Claire’s life in the bathtub and in the lake, but Claire still has to finish the job herself even in both of those instances.
So yeah, I like What Lies Beneath. I enjoy it more as a murder mystery than as a ghost movie, but the supernatural elements support the mystery in a positive way. I really like that the ghost is real. Many movies like this might try to leave the presence of the ghost somewhat ambiguous to make the audience wonder if the supernatural part of the movie was all imagined by the lead character. That’s fine too, but it takes some really stellar writing and directing for that to not feel like a cop-out to me. And sometimes I just want to see a good mystery with a few jump scares and an actual ghost. What Lies Beneath delivers exactly that, and that’s why I like it.
