WHAT LIES BELOW
US, 2020, 87 minutes, Colour.
Ema Horvath, Mena Suvarii, Trey Tucker, Haskiri Velasquez.
Directed by Braden R. Duemmler.
This is a brief horror film which satisfied some fans but left others expecting more.
It develops in stages, step-by-step.
We are introduced to the 16-year-old Liberty, Ema Horvath, at a camp, reclusive, studying archaeology, picked up by her mother (Mena Suvari more than twenty years after American Beauty) to return to their house in the forest and countryside. Liberty is rather taciturn on the way home, her mother referring to her constantly as Baby Girl, trying to be cheery.
The first stage of the film is the tension between mother and daughter, the sprightly mother, the more taciturn daughter, memories of the dead father, of the grandparents, the mother’s bad memories, the granddaughter’s happy memories, the ritual of digging up tins from the grounds and putting souvenirs in them each year, the mother reluctant, telling more truth about the past.
The next stage is the introduction of the mother’s boyfriend, John (Trey Tucker) emerging from the water like Ursula Andress in Dr No, handsome, physique, Liberty dismayed and intrigued at the same time. He gives rather lengthy explanations of his work as a scientist, examining creatures in lakes, explaining survival of ancient creatures in saltwater and freshwater, going out to collect samples, revealing his laboratory in the basement and his experiments.
The next stage is his unwelcome attentions to Liberty, groping and her bleeding, the audience seeing him in the corridor and her clothes as a fetish. Liberty calls in her girlfriend and wants to challenge John. In the meantime, the mother is ill, wanting a pregnancy test, determining that they are pregnant, John having asked her to marry him. John has an answer to any difficulty.
The next stage is moving towards the horror aspects, red light appearing on the lake, the light which opened the film, John walking into the light, emerging from the lake dry, explaining to Liberty that he slept walked. Liberty also looks in on the room with John at her mother and notices sinister markings emerging from his back.
The next stage is the science fiction and horror aspect, John revealed as an alien, predatory, imprisoning Michelle in his laboratory, Liberty trying to set her free, a sense of menace, more creatures arriving, John tying up Michelle, and an eventual revelation that he is an alien monster collecting samples from earth and imprisoning women in glass cases and water.
And that is where the film ends, rather pessimistically, which may have dismayed some audiences.
However, it is something of a compendium of science-fiction/horror/alien narratives.
