What Lies Beneath(2000)

POOPER: (Thanks Curt, THE GRAND POOP-BAH)
Norman (Harrison Ford) killed Madison (Amber Valletta) when she threatened to expose their affair to the dean. When Claire (Michelle Pfeiffer) begins to suspect, Norman attempts to kill her too. Multiple interventions by Madison’s ghost allow Claire to escape, and leave Norman dead.

LONGER VERSION:
After the incident in which, possessed by Madison’s spirit and having tried to seduce Norman, Claire remembered he cheated on her with the young girl, they go once again through an impasse that appears to culminate with Norman attempting suicide by electrocuting himself in the bathtub with a hairdryer. He recovers from it and admits to the affair, alluding that he and Madison fought when he ended it but that he had nothing to do with her subsequent disappearance or death.

They make amends and everything appears to go back to normal; however, more strange clues and occurrences keep surfacing. Claire, one day, seems to drop herself into the lake by her house where she finds a jewelry box similar to Madison’s necklace. Later on, she suggests they take a trip to Adamant together -where their neighbour Jody (Diana Scarwid) admitted to Claire she saw Norman fighting with Madison- and he pretends not to know the place, so she goes alone and spots a necklace like Madison’s on sale at a local store. She eventually recovers the box from the lake and, upon opening it with the mysterious key in Norman’s office, finds Madison’s necklace.

Once again confronted, Norman now claims a panicked Madison committed suicide and, fearing repercussions, he decided to toss her car -with her inside- into the lake. Claire coerces him to call the Police and confess what he knows so she can be found, which he picks up the phone to ostensibly do. However, Claire, who keeps growing suspicious of Norman, comes across the phone while he appears to be taking a bath and, when she retrieves the last number called, she is shocked to discover it was just 411, for General Local Information; at that moment, he appears behind her, attacks her and drugs her with Halothane, which slowly paralyzes her as she tries to run away.

It is here he finally reveals the whole truth; he did have an affair with Madison and did want to end it, but, since she threatened to denounce him to the School Dean, he made the decision of murdering her to cover his tracks; at the same time, he taunts Claire for insisting on finding out the truth and falling for his “attempt to commit suicide with the hairdryer”, and mocks her for what appeared to be a made-up story about a ghost in the house that she came to believe as true. He plans to drown her, in her paralyzed state, in the full bathtub and make it look like a suicide. As he removes Madison’s necklace off Claire, he sees a vision of Madison’s corpse, recoils in horror and hits his head hard against the sink, falling unconscious.

The effects of the drug start wearing off slowly while Claire struggles to gather whatever little strength she can muster to unplug and drain the sink, which she manages to do, saving herself. As soon as she can move, she pulls the phone off Norman’s hand and walks away, but he suddenly reawakens and chases her. She flees using their truck -which has their leisure boat attached-, while, unbeknownst to her, Norman has managed to sneak into the boat, eventually catching up with her, causing a struggle that sends the vehicle off a bridge and crashing into the lake.

As it goes under and fills with water, Norman intends to drown them both while Claire pleads with him not to. At that moment, Madison’s car, sunk beneath them, is shaken by the falling truck and a spear from the boat pops through the roof, freeing Madison’s decayed body off to the water. They both notice this; then, the corpse appears to spring back to life and clutches tightly to Norman while he holds the necklace. This allows Claire to escape swimming back safely to the surface, while Norman drowns, dropping the necklace, and Madison, showing a slight smile of relief for being avenged, returns to a decadent lifeless state and drifts off back to the bottom of the lake.

The movie ends with Claire, some time later, already in winter, visiting Claire’s grave -having been finally found and put to rest- to deposit a red rose in her memory.