India Stoker (Canberra’s own Wasikowska) has just lost her father in a car accident. With her mother (Kidman) unstable and alienating, she finds herself drawn to her newly arrived uncle Charlie (Goode). Even as his motives become more suspicious, India can’t help herself from becoming infatuated, in ways that become more and more dangerous.

Screenwriter Miller is better known as an actor, appearing on four years of “Prison Break” as the emotionally restrained Michael Schofield. This is his first produced screenplay, a dark and twisted story perfect for the English-language debut of director Chan-wook Park (Korean director of Thirst and Old Boy). With some great performances (including the Australian triple-decker of Wasikowska, Kidman and Weaver), and a very nasty approach to family bonds, it’s a great way to get creeped out at the movies.

What Lies Beneath has a good solid cast – Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford in the lead roles as well-off Claire Spencer and her husband Professor Norman Spencer – and although you’ve seen the plot many times before, it is what is not said that adds layers of suspense.

Ominous, creepy silences dominate the telling of the story – a mixture of drama and horror with a large helping of the supernatural – aided by the sounds of breathing, footsteps and doors that creak fuelling the build-up of tensions. Sounds clichéd but it isn’t.

Claire suffers memory losses, the result of a car accident. She is also unsettled after her daughter leaves home to go to college. They live next door to a husband and wife (Remar and Australia’s Otto) whose loud arguments are matched by the volume of their sex.

The story gets going when Claire sees the husband from next door apparently putting a bag with a body inside into the boot of his car. Then follows a series of strange events and a séance which takes a nasty turn. Dogs bark, pictures fall off walls and ghosts come haunting before guilty secrets are inevitably revealed.