What Lies Beneath *

When a mainstream director dabbles in the horror genre, it usually spells disaster. They seem to apply a patronising touch, as if they think they're above the material. If you want a good cheese burger you go to burger King, not to a top restaurant. Somebody should have told Zemeckis.

It's easy to make a shit horror film, but it takes a real lack of talent to make one so dull as this plodding mess. Zemeckis seems to have set out to insult his audience as much as possible. We get fake shocks (at this stage every cinemagoer knows that once a character peeps through a hole or wipes steam from a mirror, we're in for a shock). We get terrible exposition (a Scooby Doo style speech by the killer). The most ridiculous moment comes when Pfeiffer discovers the murder victim was a double of herself. She pays a visit to the victim's mother who inexplicably fails to notice any resemblance whatsoever.

I'm not saying Ford gives a wooden performance, but there's a scene where he's seated at a desk, and the desk blows him off the screen.