What Lies Beneath

This film exists because of a waiting period. Robert Zemeckis had paused Cast Away while Tom Hanks lost weight and grew a beard, and the crew was sitting idle. His own account is blunt: they were paying people to wait for Hanks, so they made a movie in between, using the same crew. The Hitchcock references are explicit, with Psycho and Vertigo running all the way through it. Roger Ebert's objection lands, though: Hitchcock never used the supernatural, and the ghost element blunts the thriller. Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer were Zemeckis's only choices, and both needed a hit at that point. They got one, and it became Ford's first 100 million dollar domestic grosser in a fourth consecutive decade. It took close to 291.5 million dollars worldwide, though studio executive Bill Mechanic later said they barely made a profit because of talent participations and a gross split between two studios. Who it is for: viewers who like slow, classical domestic suspense. Who it is not for: anyone about to watch the trailer, which gives away the twist and was criticised for it at the time.