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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.

What Lies Beneath
DreamWorks


6.9

based on 35 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 14 votes
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Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA 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).

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Sarah Kernochan (story) Clark Gregg (also story)
DIRECTED BY:	Robert Zemeckis
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: January 30, 2001 Video: January 30, 2001 Theatrical: July 21, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	129 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

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.

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.

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.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Bears the weight of too many genres jostling for screen time.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

An uncommonly playful fright machine -- a fun house factory of scares.

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.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

A classy supernatural lady-in-distress thriller.

TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin

It's some scary fun to watch.

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.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

You feel you've been both a little creeped out and vigorously entertained. Its showmanship comes through in the clutch.

Slate David Edelstein

There's a great, Hitchcockian suspense sequence in a bathtub.

Variety Emanuel Levy

A thriller that tries aggressively, but not entirely successfully, to deliver the goods of three genres -- suspense, supernatural and horror.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

It's a kinder, gentler "Tales From the Crypt" that, in the end, is neither kind nor gentle.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Until the last 15 minutes, What Lies Beneath is a well-paced maze that earns every gasp from its audience.

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.

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.

Mr. Showbiz Kevin Maynard

Startlingly shallow even for a summer movie.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Never reaches much beyond the surface, and what lies there is all too predictable.

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.

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.

Newsweek Jeff Giles

A slick but surprisingly empty genre movie that builds to a not particularly shocking shock.

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.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Suggest a Clintons-at-home scenario for 2001 -- haunted by the ghosts of dalliances past.

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.

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.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A picture sufficiently shallow that you'll discover everything that lies beneath it well before the end.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

Truly, this is a bad script.

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.

Film.com Robert Horton

This impeccable ghost story is utterly old-fashioned, a straightforward suspenser with no twists.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Sparse and implausible screenplay.

Film.com John Hartl

Loses touch with its characters.

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.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

What Lies Beneath is my head on the movie theater floor, snoozing through this film.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Feels more planned than passionate, scary at points but unconvincing overall.

The average user rating for this movie is 6.9 (out of 10) based on 14 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!

What Lies Beneath DreamWorks

What Lies Beneath
DreamWorks