Synopsis:
What Lies Below centers on Libby, a 16 year-old girl returning home from camp. She learns that her mother has a new boyfriend, who she intends to marry. A man whose charm, intelligence and beauty are…uncanny.
Directed by: Braden R. Duemmler
Screenplay by: Braden R. Duemmler
Starring: Emma Horvath, Mena Suvari, Trey Tucker
My Edition:
Streaming – Netflix
My Thoughts:
There’s gonna be spoilers galore, so if that’s not your thing you should run away.
So, to start off, the boyfriend/intended husband in What Lies Below is named JOHN SMITH. John Smith. Not even Jonathan Smith. Just John Smith.
Nothing to see here. Clearly.
I cross-posted this to WTF Did I Just Watch because frankly, I think it deserves a home over there too.
So, What Lies Below centers around 16 year old Libby and her mom Michelle. Libby returns home from a camp to discover that her mom has taken up with the aforementioned, and not at all suspicious John Smith. He’s living in the house, and they’re planning to get married. He is apparently a geneticist of aqua-things or something (dammit man, I’m a writer not a scientist!), and he’s been in the area trying to discover a way to help freshwater creatures survive in water with increasing levels of salinity. I think. Something like that, anyway. No matter what, they have a basement full of lamprey tanks, so…that’s a thing.
Libby thinks that John is confusingly hot, but…he’s super weird. He does increasingly bizarre/creepy things and shrugs them off by saying that he’s always been socially awkward (I’m paraphrasing here). He gets really weird though. Like watching her sleep/sniffing her discarded clothing weird.
You’re probably asking yourself:
What the hell does this have to do with lampreys or water salinity?
Me too. I’m actually not 100% on that. But I will tell you this – John Smith is not your normal dude. I’m pretty sure he’s an alien. Like, probably not a body snatcher, since his doppelgangers show up around town throughout, but he’s definitely not a people-guy.
So, if we operate on the assumption that he’s not a run-of-the-mill sea(lake) monster, but is in fact a creature from another planet, his mission becomes clear. He must prepare the planet for colonization. And breed with the women-folk, naturally. Standard stuff, really. This kind of crap is Extremely My Jam™
But here is where What Lies Below really falls apart for me:
It gives almost zero payoff. It was rated TV-MA for…what exactly? A little dollop of menstrual blood? I guess? I mean, they set up all this potential super-gnarly body horror, and then the camera jumps over it like it doesn’t even matter. I’ve heard the director say they had a tight budget, but…I feel like they could have figured it out. Maybe less of the under-the-skin-moving-cgi and more alien babies, yeah? Like, why set up the birth in the first place if you’re going to show NOTHING. No. Thing. And this happens in more than just this one instance (the jumping over set-ups for rad fx, not the alien baby birthing). Whyeeeeee.
Rating:
The story itself is fine, and I don’t think the ending is nearly so confusing as the critical masses seem to think (my glob, some of those reviews…). But ultimately, I feel like a lot was promised that was never delivered. Like, delivery was not even attempted. And it left me feeling sad and empty. And actually a little pissed, now that I’m talking about it. It was such a cool start to what was ultimately an incredibly unfulfilling film.
What Lies Below Directed by: Braden R. Duemmler US Release Date: December 4, 2020 DRF Productions TV-MA 89 Minutes
