Actual scary movie!

>> What Lies Beneath is old-fashioned fun

by MATTHEW HAYS

Don't let anyone ruin this one for you. What Lies Beneath is one of those films that can so easily be ruined by too much dinner party conversation by people enthusing about it. Just go and see it.

Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford are the perfect couple in their perfect beachfront home. Her daughter from a previous marriage has just taken off to college, so Pfeiffer's at a wee bit of a loss as to what to do. The housing renovations are almost complete and hubby Ford is an awfully busy scientist with a power career that eclipses most of the couple's concerns.

But Pfeiffer senses something terribly wrong in their gorgeous house. Someone died, sometime in the past, she gleans, and sure enough, the neighbours are acting mighty odd. They've been fighting a lot, and suddenly, the neighbour's wife is nowhere in sight, while the neighbour's husband is seen stuffing what appears to be a body bag into the back of his car after dark. Pfeiffer is convinced that a heinous crime has been committed by her weird, distant neighbour.

What Lies Beneath unfolds beautifully, guided by a wicked-clever screenplay and a director I always kind of thought was a hack (Robert Zemeckis, the man behind that dreck Forrest Gump). Not here he's not. What is irritating, however, are the marketing chumps, who've managed to give way too much of this film away in the trailer, which is conveniently being heavily rotated in multiplexes everywhere, giving audiences hunches that should have been revelations during the actual movie. Still, this is well worth your eight or nine bucks. I miss old-fashioned ghost movies and decent suspense movies; What Lies Beneath rolls both into one.

Don't read past this point until you've seen the thing. A final point: there are some gorgeous visual references to Hitchcock, in particular Psycho. Indeed, this movie does for the bath what Psycho did for the shower. The film also has smatterings of humour, heeding Hitchcock's adage about comedy and suspense being Siamese twins. But Hitch also understood casting, using Jimmy Stewart's clean-cut persona to great effect in films like Vertigo. Ditto with Ford here, who, after playing the virtuous family man in The Fugitive and Air Force One, is cast brilliantly against type by Zemeckis.

What Lies Beneath opens Friday, July 21