Netflix Is Streaming Harrison Ford's Underrated Horror Thriller With Michelle Pfeiffer

"What Lies Beneath" (2000), now streaming on Netflix, isn't your typical Robert Zemeckis fare. The writer-director, generally known for such crowd-pleasers as the "Back to the Future" trilogy or "Forrest Gump" — and the occasional hard-hitting and somewhat sensational dramas like "Flight" (which is not based on a true story) or "The Walk" — moves in a territory here that's quite uncharacteristic of him as a filmmaker. On a first watch, "What Lies Beneath" feels like an early aughts chiller made by Sam Raimi at the end of his horror-dominated era rather than something deliberately chosen by Zemeckis. Although he did direct episodes in "Tales From the Crypt" and Meryl Streep's horror comedy, "Death Becomes Her," before, "What Lies Beneath" was truly his first attempt at a proper, unflinching horror-thriller.

With its $100 million budget, Zemeckis approached it as a potential middlebrow blockbuster, and to his credit, the movie eventually became one after release. Critics didn't go easy on it — Roger Ebert gave it two stars out of four and called it "a morass of absurdity", but viewers were drawn to it by the high-concept premise of a neglected housewife uncovering a secret murder, and the appeal of the powerful lead duo, Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford. The film may not have offered a strikingly original story in the genre, but it delivered one with teeth, sensation, and a big scoop of suspense with supernatural elements. Those proved enough to capture the zeitgeist and not let it go until the film nearly tripled its budget.

No doubt, "What Lies Beneath" is pulpy and riddled with moments requiring a large dose of suspension of disbelief, but its nostalgic charm and excellent lead performances make it worthy to revisit now as an underrated piece of cinema history.

The plot begins with Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford), a middle-aged couple living in a marvelous and idyllic lakeside house in Vermont, whose marriage is showing signs of some wear. As they send their daughter to college, there's a palpable worry in the air about Claire, as she'll have to spend a lot of time alone, only a year after a car accident. As a scientist, Norman is barely home, which makes his wife feel lonely and neglected. But the new couple who just moved next door provides a much-needed distraction with their turbulent and alarming quarrels. Startled by overhearing the woman's cry one afternoon, Claire begins to snoop around their house and soon discovers that the woman seems to have disappeared.

After some weird happenings around the house (doors and faucets opening mysteriously) and talking to the morose husband, Claire slowly grows certain that he killed the woman and dumped the body in the lake. In fact, she's convinced her ghost is haunting her to reveal the truth. When she tells Norman about this, he's afraid his wife is going insane and gets her help. We soon find out that Claire isn't imagining things about the supernatural force or a mysterious slaying, just that things may be a lot more complicated and personal than she suspected.

Robert Zemeckis might not be a master of horror/thriller, but he understands suspense. He spends an hour building it, and thanks to his tricks creating tension and Pfeiffer's committed performance, we bite. Regardless of the predictability (and some lurid plot twists) of Clark Gregg's script, there's an enticement here to get sucked into the murder mystery with these characters despite some inherent contrivance.

In retrospect, Robert Zemeckis' Hitchcock-inspired slow-burning suspense is much overlooked here in favor of the many twists that hugely contributed to "What Lies Beneath" becoming a hit. The turns that arrive in the movie's last third are so bonkers (and silly at times) that they become amusing. Arguably, with them, a big chunk of the story's wonky realism and established character development land in the garbage, but it'd be a lie to say that doesn't add flavor to the film's nostalgic early aughts vibe. After all the red herrings, the haunting ghost in mirrors, and the unhurriedly uncovered pulpy secrets about infidelity are said and done, you'll find yourself in a finale that's as gripping as it is melodramatic.

That memorable bathtub scene with a feisty Michelle Pfeiffer desperately trying to survive will undeniably send a wave through your nerves and emotions, making you forget every plot hole, inconsistency, and general flaw that you came across in the past 100 minutes. By then, all that matters is that you're invested in a way that has you rooting for this heroine like she was your favorite marathon runner closing in on the last few yards of the finish line with a broken ankle. Undoubtedly, "What Lies Beneath" tries a little too hard to be a serious life-and-death thriller (with mixed efficiency), but if you can view it as pure pulpy entertainment without any message on its mind to leave you with, it'll more than likely give you a fun time — even if it proves to be incredibly fleeting.