What Lies Below - Film Review

Of all the movies I planned on watching with my family on Christmas Day, this was so far from the list that I didn't even know it existed. Despite that, I was drawn to its simple premise, as well as Trey Tucker's abs. Indie films might be hit-or-miss, but I feel like even the worst of the bunch are more interesting than the increasingly formulaic blockbusters we're inundated with today.

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Where You Can Find It: I saw this one on Amazon Video, where it is available for free to Amazon Prime members.

General Information 
What Lies Below is an indie horror film released on 4 December 2020. It was directed and written by Braden Duemmler with Vertical Entertainment distributing. Reading up on this film's background information was a little harder than usual as there's not much out there on this one (it doesn't even seem to have a Wikipedia page). Some research on Duemmler seems to show that this is his first feature length film (he's directed two short films prior to this). The film holds a 50% on the Tomatometer on Rotten Tomatoes with no Metascore on Metacritic as of 31 December 2020. 

The Story

16 year-old Liberty "Libby" Wells (played by Ema Horvath) returns to her family's home on a lake from summer camp to find that her mother, Michelle (Mena Suvari), has taken a new boyfriend that moved in while Libby was away. Michelle's new beau, John Smith (eerily played by Trey Tucker), is an extremely handsome marine biologist studying the freshwater wildlife nearby. It doesn't take long before Libby starts to notice that there's something a little off about Smith though. The seemingly perfect man holds a dark secret that may just leave the Wells family questioning who can they really trust.

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I'm sure Michelle only likes him for his personality

The overall story of this film is pretty generic, but sometimes generic can be good. I was quickly reminded of the Goosebumps episode "Stay Out of the Basement" as both stories include young people contending with seemingly off authority figures. The plot kept my interest throughout its short run-time (87 minutes) and I found myself intrigued by trying to figure out what exactly Smith was up to. One thing I will applaud the film on was its ending, which was both disturbing and daring.

Without going too far into detail, I found the underlying theme of domestic abuse to be pretty chilling. It's made clear very early on that Smith has some type of fascination with Libby, and it was pretty rough seeing a teenager deal with seemingly predatory behavior in their own home while the only parent ignores the problems. I'd be curious how Duemmler married up the film's ending with this theme as it was relatively unexpected.

Special Effects/Atmosphere

The Wells family home makes a nice set for the film's story to take place in. Almost immediately into the film, the viewer can see that there's a sense of isolation out by the lake. The inclusion of only seven actors/actresses in the film only enhanced this loneliness too. The lighting deserves a special mention, as there's an abundant use of color used throughout the film, with some of it potentially alluding to certain themes (I might guess that the color red represented danger or Smith's secret).

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The use of orange, red, and blue lights in this film is spectacular

I don't want to hammer this film too hard on its special effects as it's clearly a budget film. Thankfully, Duemmler uses the camera to hide much of the more extreme objects that would require a great deal of CGI or expensive practical effects. This method doesn't always work however, as there were at least a couple of occasions where it was unclear what exactly was going on in a scene as these objects were cropped out.

The Acting

Trey Tucker channels Skeet Ulrich to an almost scary degree as soon as he strolls onto screen. Like Ulrich's performance in Scream, Tucker is very adept at mixing charm with creepiness. I haven't seen Tucker in anything else, but I'm interested to see where his career goes in the future as I think he turns in a solid performance.

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What a charmer...

Ema Horvath does a decent job at portraying the increasingly unsettled Libby, but there were times where I felt she came off a bit wooden. There was more than a few scenes where something especially weird occurred involving her character, only for her to act mildly in shock from it all. I wouldn't say it was bad by any means, as I think that a person in Libby's shoes could easily fall into that behavior, but it sometimes hurt the overall momentum of the plot.

A final mention I'd like to give is Mena Suvari's take as Michelle Wells. Suvari is the only person in this film that I recognize from previous work. She was one of the main cast in American Pie (I feel old just thinking about how long ago that was...), but hit main stardom in American Beauty. Her career is still on the rise, and her talent really stands out in this film despite a somewhat limited presence. We saw a lot of different facets of Michelle's character thanks to Suvari's performance, and I applaud Duemmler's choice in signing her onto this film. 

The Best of the Best: Trey Tucker's unsettling portrayal every woman's "dream guy."

The Worst of the Worst: There's a scene where period blood goes in someone's mouth. I don't want to say any more due to spoiler concerns, but I think I've said all that needs to be said.

Calhooey Score: 6/10 - Above Average

Would I Recommend?

If you're looking for something new to watch and love simple, horror movies, I think this is a good one to check out. I wasn't particularly blown away with it, but Duemmler takes some risks in this film and that's always something that I think should be rewarded in this day and age. 

-------------------------------------------------Spoiler Comments-----------------------------------------------------

• If Scream taught us to never trust Skeet Ulrich, then I think this film taught us to never trust people that even look like Skeet Ulrich.
• I'm glad the movie finally acknowledged that licking someone's period blood is not "normal." Miley may have been the only one with a shred of common sense in this film, which was why I just knew she was going to get fed to the little snake things in the basement at Smith's earliest convenience.
• I'm kind of curious why the Smiths would ever change out of their human disguise? It seems to protect them from their weaknesses, while not inhibiting their superhuman abilities to climb walls and flex their washboard abs.
• Let's talk about that ending. Goodness, was that brutal! I felt bad enough seeing poor Libby get grabbed by the Smiths, but then having to watch her slowly drown in a space-pod left me feeling awful by the end.
• I didn't want to say it for spoiler reasons, but this movie really made me think of Species too. Anyone else get that vibe?

----------------------------------------------------References--------------------------------------------------

*Rotten Tomatoes. (2020). What Lies Below film cover image. Retrieved from: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/what_lies_below_2020.

**Srisavasdi, G. (2020, December 4). John Smith emerging from the lake image. Deepest Dream. Retrieved from: https://deepestdream.com/trey-tucker-locks-in-on-the-character-driven-dynamics-of-what-lies-below/.

***IMDB. (2020). John Smith in red image. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9264728/.