FOR DYING OUT LOUD 666

DISEMBODIED DAMES



WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Remar, Miranda Otto, Amber Valleta, Joe Morton, Wendy Crewson
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Dr. Norman Spencer is a university genetic research scientist married to Claire, a retired concert pianist who was in a serious, near-fatal car crash the previous year. Their daughter (Norman's stepdaughter) has just left home for college. Claire is bored & lonely and has taken to spying on the neighbors next door, the Feurs. With binoculars in hand, she is fascinated with the movements of the couple, and then convinces herself that the aloof Warren Feur is an abuser who has murdered his wife, Mary, when she seemingly vanishes without a trace. Sensing their own under-renovation Vermont home is inhabited by a forceful presence, Claire begins hearing voices and experiencing eerie incidents involving doors, mirrors, picture frames, their startled dog barking at the unseen -- and particularly unsettling -- seeing the face of a similar-looking young woman reflected in water (first in the nearby lake and later in the bathtub). Are the unexplainable voices & visions real, or is it all a projection of her subconscious, stirred up by a snooping obsession that got out of hand? When Claire tells her gruff workaholic husband of the occurrences, he is dismissive and emotionally unsupportive but she won't drop it, so he urges her to see a therapist. When she tells Doc that she believes a ghost is haunting her house, he advises making contact with the spirit. [Seriously. A trained & licensed professional psychiatrist is recommending to a highly vulnerable and suggestible patient, unstable & unhinging, that to probe her fears beyond being an extraordinary figment of imagination, damn the torpedoes and seek out this phantom by implement & procedure. Go on, indulge. Allow yourself to reach into the paranormal domain populated by scary boogeymen... Jesus. Welcome to 2000 and the new millennium].

Claire tells all to her flaky best friend, Jody, who provides the light comic relief in contrast to the brooding suspense. One ouija board later, the ladies hold a séance in the bathroom. But whatever this apparition, it will not go away. In her growing terror, Claire was sure that Mary's ghost was stalking her to reveal the truth of her death at the hands of foul play but that certainty proved false. The mystery of the unusual phenomena however reveals someone else entirely -- a girl named Madison Elizabeth Frank (introduced by Claire's computer turning itself on and the initials 'MEF' typing themselves repeatedly). The entity revs up in malevolence and now has a bone to pick with Norman, who in a few instances of observing spirit-possession take hold of his wife's body, himself begins wondering if his eyes & brain are playing tricks on him. Learning of Madison, Claire visits the girl's mother and accuses Norman of betrayal. He confesses having had an affair but when he broke it off, she threatened killing herself or Claire, and then disappeared. Jody knew about it too but said nothing fearing her bestie would harm herself and turn suicidal. Water now plays its deadly final hand as guilt drives Norman to the bathtub with a hairdryer to electrocute himself, and Claire to the wharf to drown herself. Husband is saved by wife, who in turn is saved by husband. A jewelry box that Claire spotted in the lake is retrieved by her and a key that she found earlier in a floor vent, unlocks it to reveal a clue as to what really happened to Madison. Norman tells the truth at last but when he pretends to call the police with information about the still-missing girl, Claire is attacked by him and in a relentless fight for her life, she races to keep from becoming another buried secret.

The storytelling has a clearly Hitchcock-style with its themes of doubt, delusion and deceit, obviously playing peekaboo with REAR WINDOW. As well, we also have one of Hitchcock's favourite framing mechanisms (besides using blondes as female leads): presenting the surface as an exterior mask before we unveil to reveal disturbing interior. (Hence the movie's title). On the outside, Norman (whose name alone in the Hitchcock-verse should be a dead giveaway that he is an illusion of innocence) and Claire look like a picture-perfect pairing but they have this considerable baggage underneath the coating of happiness, and what unravels leaves us with 2 people who are suddenly strangers to each other, unable to trust their partner. The direction makes good use of imagery and noise, and keeps you second-guessing with sudden turns. For those that might find WHAT LIES BENEATH contrived, I say the redemption lies in the more than effective acting. Michelle Pfeiffer as Claire is in almost every scene and does a great job making the viewer believe that Claire is heavily invested in everything happening to her. Her need to understand makes her sympathetic without overdoing it. Not an easy balance. The always reliable Harrison Ford as Norman is also solid in a satisfying departure from his more familiar 'reluctant-hero-swept-into-action' fare. Playing against type, he needs to be something other than what he seems and he pulls it off. In total, the movie is not altogether unpredictable and its trailers are far more to blame for ruining plot developments and character revelations, but this fault aside (thanks to marketing jackasses for the bad promo teasers), it's still very watchable enough to keep you hanging on -- and even as the restlessness begins to run off the rails, the resolution is reasonable.




THE UNINVITED (1944)
Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell, Donald Crisp, Alan Napier, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Barbara Everest
Directed by Lewis Allen
May 10, 1937. Rick Fitzgerald is a composer & music critic vacationing with his assertive sister, Pamela. The Londonite siblings buy a neglected 18th Century cliff-top home called Windward House on the Cornish seacoast in Devonshire at an incredibly low price. It's a bargain too good to pass up and the owner, Commander Beech, is only too willing to get rid of it. At first tight-lipped, he tells the duo of the house's unsavory past involving his daughter, Mary, who fell to her death from the cliff in 1920, having committed suicide (but rumored in the village as murder). Equally maternal as he is morbid for his unhealthy fixation on Mary's memory, Beech's shy/child-like/insecure granddaughter, Stella, objects to the sale and is displeased that she's been forbidden to enter but she cannot stay away, and Rick (who is already a protective man) grows sweet on her and will later write a piano song entitled 'Stella by Starlight'. The Fitzgeralds move in and the charm of their new manor soon evaporates when they find an unlocked room at the top of the house, an artist's studio. The history of the house also comes furnished with strange incidents such as inconsolable sobbing & moaning, cold chills, the wafting fragrance of flowers, and bumps in the dead of night. When the superstitious Irish housekeeper also senses the heebie-jeebies, it becomes apparent the manor is haunted by a hostile spirit supposedly being Stella's late mother Mary, who seems to mean her own daughter harm even though Stella idolizes her. Stella is deeply affected and in one abrupt moment, runs to the edge of the dangerous cliff and is caught by Rick just in time.

Another edge is the verge of a nervous breakdown for Stella which is not far off. Despite Rick's initial cynicism, he conducts a séance which backfires resulting in Stella being temporarily possessed, and bringing on another discovery: the house being inhabited by a 2nd ghost which looks to protect Stella. With these spectral visitations, the assistance of a local doctor helps in Stella being sent to a sanitorium run by Mary's friend, the cold & repressive Miss Holloway. The 2nd spirit is that of Carmel, a Spanish gypsy & model whom Stella's painter father, Llewellyn, was having an affair. When Mary found out, she took Carmel to Paris and dumped her there. But Carmel came back to Britain and in revenge, stole infant Stella, pushed Mary off the cliff during an argument, and later died from pneumonia. When the Fitzgeralds visit Stella still under medical treatment, Miss Holloway tells them that after the scandal, she nursed Carmel but the siblings find the doctor's journal which suggests she may have been responsible for the despondent woman's death. With Beech now in failing health and told by a doctor of his granddaughter's deteriorated situation, Miss Holloway deceptively sends Stella back to Windward House. Stella finds her grandfather in the studio and is again begged to leave but she stays at his side. One ghost makes an appearance and Beech suffers a fatal heart attack. The Fitzgeralds return as Stella makes another dash to the cliff where again she is saved. Back in the house, the group are drawn to the doctor's journal revealing the truth about the 2 tragic women; a dark secret that leads Rick to a confrontation in a dramatic ghostly showdown.

THE UNINVITED is a gothic, multilayered Hollywood classic and groundbreaking for being considered the first film ever to treat the haunted house genre with seriousness and intelligence. Whereas previously, ghosts in such yarns had always been depicted in a comedic tomfoolery-fashion such as slapstick trotted out by the likes of Abbott & Costello, or as costumed capers to cover-up crime much like in Scooby Doo. Adapted from the 1941 book 'Uneasy Freehold' by Dorothy Macardle, the movie is rich in spooky atmosphere, is very similar to mysteries of the period, and it's elegance (soft and almost poetic) is equally effective for not only the clever love-triangle at the heart of the story, but in how the characters treat the apparitions with real curiousness as to why their manifestations are taking place. This is further underpinned with relationships having been fraught with power struggles, sexual frustration and latent lesbian overtones. With comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA, the Fitzgerald's could be mistaken for a married couple but otherwise, here they are perfectly nuanced with lighting, cinematography, sound and film score -- all of which help build up our imagination that stands in for the deliberately unseen. And what we do see in the few instances is in misty/wispy form, which is handled with restraint. There's a subdued understatement in the ethereal materializations but the eerie mood & tone, and especially great performances enhance the overall air of creepiness. Subtle and superb, this vintage spine-chiller should not be missed.