B MOVIE, A-LIST DIRECTOR.

Byline: Rob Lowman Entertainment Editor

Robert Zemeckis has made better films than last summer's hit supernatural thriller ``What Lies Beneath.'' The director of ``Forrest Gump'' and ``Cast Away,'' however, took what is a bit-above-average story and had some fun with it.

``What Lies Beneath,'' due out Tuesday on video and DVD, stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford as Claire and Norman Spencer. Claire's daughter from a previous marriage has just gone off to college, leaving her alone for much of the time in the couple's old New England house while Norman, a scientist, works on a research project at the local university.

Claire soon begins to experience strange events and begins to suspect their neighbor of murder. Eventually she begins to believe that her house is haunted, and she thinks she knows by whom.

Though Zemeckis, who has also directed ``Who Framed Roger Rabbit,'' the ``Back to the Future'' trilogy, ``Contact'' and ``Romancing the Stone,'' hasn't traveled this road before in feature films, it isn't unfamiliar territory. True, ``Death Becomes Her'' is a comic fantasy with grotesque elements, but Zemeckis dug deeper in the horror genre in the HBO series ``Tales From the Crypt,'' for which he produced as well as directed some of the macabre episodes.

(Three of the episodes - `` ... And All Through the House,'' ``Yellow'' and ``You, Murderer,'' which stars a computer-generated Humphrey Bogart - are on the ``Tales From the Crypt - Zemeckis Collection'' but good luck finding it.)

And the same fun he had with ``Crypt'' is evident in ``What Lies Beneath,'' which is out on video and DVD on Tuesday. Throughout the film, Zemeckis treads a fine line between defying expectations while at the same time living up to them. That, as we learned from the ``Scream'' movies, seems to be the key to thrillers these days. In the Wes Craven films, a character enumerates the rules of horror films - what sidekicks get killed, why you're in peril if you had sex, etc. - and then the movie proceeds to follow them.

Zemeckis instead gives viewers the scenes they are expecting and then plays with the audience's expectations. Sometimes it's subtle - merely timing. Where you expect something scary to happen, it does. But instead of one, two, three, boom; it's one, two, three, 3 1/2, 3 3/4 ...

As I said before, not a great film, but fun, and Zemeckis shows us how to have a good time.

OPEN YOUR EYES: Fox Home Entertainment has just released new DVD versions of six of its titles with both DTS and Dolby Digital sound and new anamorphic transfers. What does this mean? I'm not sure, but I can tell that they sound and look terrific if you have the appropriate amp, speakers and TV (and my stuff is hardly top of the line).

Anamorphic transfers, I was told, are a way of digitally optimizing the picture's resolution and work as well on current televisions as well as the new HDTVs. (This is the dummies' version for people like me.) All I can tell you is that the results are great.

The titles are ``Predator,'' ``The Siege,'' ``Courage Under Fire,'' ``The Last of the Mohicans,'' ``The X-Files'' movie and ``The Thin Red Line.'' Each lists for $29.98. Since most of these titles have been previously released, make sure the ones you buy list all the new features.

``What Lies Beneath'' (DreamWorks) lists for 26.99 on DVD and includes commentary by Zemeckis and a ``making of'' featurette. The VHS version is priced for rental at $110.99.

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Michelle Pfeiffer and Harrison Ford are seemingly the perfect couple in the Robert Zemeckis thriller ``What Lies Beneath,'' now on VHS and DVD.