What Lies Beneath (2000) - 15 mistakes

Continuity: When Harrison Ford is watching his wife laying in the bathtub ready to drown, the camera shoots her head several times between cutaways to Ford and the running water.   Watch her head relative to the top of the tub in the various shots.  In some her head is much higher than in others yet her body never moves.

Continuity: When Claire first sees the ghost, Norman rushes in and Claire grabs and hugs him. Her hand was just in the tub yet as she's hugging Norman, her hand is dry. She would have left some kind of a wet mark on Norman's shirt.

Revealing: In an early shot shown from the neighbor's house, it is established that the Spencers' house is quite a ways uphill. Some of the later shots where Claire is spying on her neighbors and looking at their home, the angle of view does not appear to be correct. The neighbors' house looks like it's a lot closer and more level with the Spencers' home.

Factual error: When Claire pulls herself out of the bathtub, she falls right over the center of the tub. The bloody fingerprints would have been wiped away or completely smeared by her nightgown and bathrobe during the fall.

Continuity: Claire takes a basket of flowers over to the neighbor's house. Notice when she first goes to the side door the flowers take up most of the basket and are arranged a certain way. When she turns and is spooked by the car in the driveway, the flowers are arranged differently and do not take up as much of the basket.

Continuity: The first time Michelle Pfeiffer sees the tub (approx 35 minutes in) full to the brim, she walks up to it and the camera angle is from the tub to her front. She rolls up her sleeve, then with the camera angle change to her back, she approaches the tub, and the sleeve is unrolled as seen in the reflection in the water. Then she rolls it up again.

Other: When Claire Spencer loses her husband's mistress' braid in the lake, she tells him this and Dr. Norman Spencer acts like it's the first time he's heard her talk about it as he picks it out of the water. She has, however, mentioned the braid a short time before this to him, right after the rough sex they've had.

Continuity: In one scene when Michelle Pfeiffer is in the garage looking at the photo album, we see her looking at a picture of her daughter who is in a black vest. The camera angle then changes to one looking at her from across the room and we see her turn the page. We then see her half turn a page and the camera angle changes to over her shoulder to where we see her turn the rest of the page over, but if you look closely at the page before you can see it is the picture of her daughter in the black vest again.

Continuity: When Claire is in the tub after Norman gives her a drug to immobilise her, she stops the hot water valve with her toe, although Norman opened the cold water valve.

Continuity: When Claire is in the tub after her husband gives her a drug to immobilise her, watch her hair in various shots. It keeps changing position even though she is unable to move it out of the way with her hand.

Continuity: When Claire goes to the Feur's house and sees Mary's shoe on the porch, she goes to pick it up. When she does, it is in a different position than when she originally saw it.

Continuity: When she is paralysed and drowning in the bath she tries to use her feet to remove the plug. Watch her big toenail closely, it varies in length, indicating they probably used a foot double.

Continuity: When Michelle Pfeiffer is walking up to her door towards the middle-end of the movie, Michelle puts the key in the door to unlock the door, but she never unlocks it. Then the lady next door comes up and scares Michelle and when they go in, the door was never unlocked but somehow Michelle still got in.

Continuity: When the bathtub is shown full, it is filled perfectly to the rim, which means the tub is level.  When Claire is being drowned in the tub by Norman, the water is clearly deeper at one end of the tub, indicating that the tub is slanted.

Factual error: At the end of the movie Harrison Ford gives Michelle Pfeiffer a drug that supposedly paralyzes all of your voluntary muscles, that way she will not be able to move, but she will be fully conscious as she slowly drowns in the bathtub. The drug he gives her, Halothane, does not do this, however; it is merely an anaesthetic. Furthermore, any drug that does paralyze your voluntary muscles, inevitably also paralyzes your respiratory system, and you suffocate, you don't just remain immobile until it wears off, like the movie leads you to believe.