10 Horror Movie Characters You Didn’t Trust (Even Though You Should Have)

In What Lies Beneath, Claire spots her neighbour Mary crying hysterically and blubbering about her husband, Warren. When she becomes noticeably agitated when she sees her husband, Claire suspects Mary is trapped in an abusive marriage.

After Mary goes missing, Claire's concern for her intensifies. When Claire questions Warren about his wife's whereabouts, he's noticeably terse with her before suddenly leaving. When Claire starts having visions of a dead woman, she's 100% adamant Warren killed his wife.

But when she publicly accuses Warren, Claire's humiliated to see Mary standing beside him, healthy and very, very alive. Over time, we learn the visions she had were of a different woman, who Claire misidentified as Mary.

Although horror fans are always wary of misdirection, this is one we all fell for. Whilst most horror movies set up a red herring for five or ten minutes, What Lies Beneath spends nearly half the run-time on this subplot! Because Claire dissects her neighbour's habits and relationship for a good 40 minutes, we assume there's some truth to her hypothesis.

As it turns out, the whole situation was one huge red herring.