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What Lies Beneath

Mixed or average reviews
Based on 35 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 15 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Sarah Kernochan (story)
Clark Gregg (also story)
Directed by: Robert Zemeckis
Release Date:
Theatrical: July 21, 2000
DVD: January 30, 2001
Running Time: 129 minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for terror/violence, sensualtiy and brief language
Starring Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Diana Scarwid
A professor (Ford) investigates the murder of a beautiful college student who has been appearing to his wife (Pfeiffer).
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Beowulf Cast Away Contact Forrest Gump The Polar Express Who Framed Roger Rabbit
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy
As it unwinds, What Lies becomes both masterful and preposterous.
Read Full Review >New York Post Lou Lumenick
If you're able to check your brain at the popcorn stand, you'll stand a much better chance of enjoying this crowd pleaser.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham
Goes Hitchcock one better by imagining what it would be like if the master had the advantage of digital technology.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Bears the weight of too many genres jostling for screen time.
Read Full Review >Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez
An uncommonly playful fright machine -- a fun house factory of scares.
Read Full Review >Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt
A few scenes indulge in overstated hokum or thriller clichés, but Pfeiffer is first-rate and several sequences are suspenseful enough to deserve that overused adjective, Hitchcockian.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington
A classy supernatural lady-in-distress thriller.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Other (Specify)
Assume that viewers are too hungry for mindless thrills to care whether dead characters spring back to life or live ones change their personalities according to the needs of the moment.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
You feel you've been both a little creeped out and vigorously entertained. Its showmanship comes through in the clutch.
Read Full Review >Slate David Edelstein
There's a great, Hitchcockian suspense sequence in a bathtub.
Read Full Review >Variety Emanuel Levy
A thriller that tries aggressively, but not entirely successfully, to deliver the goods of three genres -- suspense, supernatural and horror.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It's a kinder, gentler "Tales From the Crypt" that, in the end, is neither kind nor gentle.
Read Full Review >Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach
Until the last 15 minutes, What Lies Beneath is a well-paced maze that earns every gasp from its audience.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris
Regardless of how cheated out of a full-bodied motion picture you feel, you're still left with the year's sickest bathroom humor.
Read Full Review >Film.com Gemma Files
An unexpectedly adult emotional rollercoaster with some very cold and unsettling things to say about men, women, marriage, and the lies we so often tell each other.
Read Full Review >USA Today Susan Wloszczyna
Never reaches much beyond the surface, and what lies there is all too predictable.
Read Full Review >Rolling Stone Peter Travers
The scares are Hichcock hand-me-downs.
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Ford and Pfeiffer deliver craftsmanlike work, but the film steadily unravels as Zemeckis tries to ratchet up the suspense.
Read Full Review >Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Lacking a smarter screenplay, it milks the genuine skills of its actors and director for more than it deserves, and then runs off the rails in an ending more laughable than scary.
Read Full Review >Newsweek Jeff Giles
A slick but surprisingly empty genre movie that builds to a not particularly shocking shock.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Dumb, dumb, dumb - borrowing scare tactics from Hitchcock and other suspense masters, but forgetting basic story.telling essentials such as character development and logical exposition.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michael Atkinson
Suggest a Clintons-at-home scenario for 2001 -- haunted by the ghosts of dalliances past.
Read Full Review >TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
This slow, derivative chiller (which lifts liberally from "Ghost Story," "Rear Window" and "A Stir of Echoes") wastes far too much time on red herrings and telegraphs its plot points with painfully obvious dialogue.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Jack Mathews
There is one good, legitimate scare in Robert Zemeckis' quasi-ghost thriller What Lies Beneath, and that's just not enough for a movie that lasts more than two hours.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
A picture sufficiently shallow that you'll discover everything that lies beneath it well before the end.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
Glazes over faster than a Krispy Kreme doughnut, and neither is very flavorful after sitting around for a while.
Read Full Review >Film.com Robert Horton
This impeccable ghost story is utterly old-fashioned, a straightforward suspenser with no twists.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Manohla Dargis
At once illogical and insultingly stupid, filled with dead-end twists and the sort of dialogue that makes a mockery of actual adult relations.
Read Full Review >Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf
What Lies Beneath is my head on the movie theater floor, snoozing through this film.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.8 (out of 10) based on 15 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Aaron. gave it a6:
Above average (average horror flick) in terms of cinematography, acting, and a very effective score. And there are some great chilling moments. But it gets pretty ridiculous pretty quick.
Randy J gave it a10:
A Brilliant first-rate classic. Mind blowing intelligence and incredible acting deliver the small blows. Sheer terrifying brilliance delivers the rest. A perfectly cast mind-blowing tour-de-force, stunning and superb. The greatest horror movie of our time.
Jake G gave it a1:
A stupid plotline really. I mean ghosts in a house? Ghosts going into people's bodies? Corny.
John S. gave it a9:
What makes this movie great is that it's essentially a chick flick that descends into a suspense thriller. The scares and special effects are given in quality, not quantity, sprinkled perfectly throughout the plot. The ending requires you to stretch your brain a little, but the setup leaves you so desperately wanting a manifestation of the fears involved that you take it. Pfeiffer does an excellent job carrying the load, and Ford is refreshing as a villain.
[Anonymous] gave it an8:
Wasted a bit too much time with the abusive couple sideplot, but when i finished the movie, i couldn't look into the bathroom mirror for a week without feeling paranoid.
Andrew M. gave it a 6:
A good film but not as effective as it could have been. I think Pfeiffer is well cast, snug in character, but I'm not so sure about Ford... I love his films but in WLB he just wasn't convincing enough and I don't think he added anything to the film. The direction was strong and creative (good use of the water theme) and the cinematography was suitably eerie. The screenplay gets a pass, but not a credit. All up, a good thriller, worth seeing, but in truth there are better examples to be found.
raVen gave it an 8:
(8.5) I liked it. The many moody allusions to water in its different forms (steam, fog, lake, bathtub, snow, etc.) are nice throughout, and adds subplot that one might use for a research paper. Having to cross water before the cell phone will reach the outside world was a nice touch. But trust me--the soundtrack is absolutely KILLER for driving around in the country at night!
