One of the handful of Hollywood filmmakers still able to put a personal stamp on his work, Robert Zemeckis made his name with big, broad comedies like "Back to the Future." But since "Forrest Gump" in 1994, a more melancholic strain has appeared in his films. "Contact" (1997) and the current "What Lies Beneath," are both about emotionally isolated women whose attempts to break through to others lead them to relationships, possibly hallucinated, with otherworldly beings.
"What Lies Beneath" is a suspense thriller, "written in the language of Hitchcock," said Zemeckis, about an unhappy housewife (Michelle Pfeiffer) who finds that an unwelcome entity has joined her marriage with Harrison Ford.
For Zemeckis, "Cutting for comedy and cutting for jolts is the same. It's all timing, which ultimately comes down to individual frames. It's exactly like leading the audience to the punch line."