House of Secrets (2014) Bianca Lawson, Brendan Fehr, Neil Jackson, Costas Mandylor, Paul Johansson Movie Review

House of Secrets (2014)   3/53/53/53/53/5


Bianca Lawson in House of Secrets (2014)

House of Horrors of Sorts

Marriage turned out to be a bad thing for Julie (Bianca Lawson - All About Christmas Eve) as her husband, Sam (Neil Jackson), turned out to be a control freak who inforced his rule over every aspect of her life, torturing her and locking her in closets to prevent her from leaving, which led to her fear of small places and closets. But whilst she manages to escape Sam and her marriage, Julie finds herself with a reminder, as the judge orders that she accepts the mansion which Sam had been building for her but never got finished. Reluctantly moving in she literally runs into and hires Tyler (Brendan Fehr - Adopting Terror), a handyman, to come in and finish the place so that she can sell it as soon as possible due to the painful memories it holds. But her uncomfortable ness in the house turns out to be well founded as it appears someone is letting themselves in and out of the house whilst also spying on her with hidden cameras. The question is who?

The more pertinent question is do we care? Unfortunately we don't because "House of Secrets" is one of those movies which doesn't care about establishing characters or building in logic in to the story. As such right from the word go it is hard to warm to Julie; not because she looks like a student but because despite the flashbacks to abuse she isn't a very sensible person. For example; you are forced to take a house you don't want and is worth a bomb but decide to move in whilst it is being finished, why? And when you start getting freaked out and convinced you are being stalked and have an intruder why the heck do you stay? There is simply too much illogical stuff going on in "House of Secrets" for it to work let alone the hilarious discovery of video cameras hidden in the loft but the cameras she finds are wireless.

Of course what "House of Secrets" is aiming for is a combination of making you jump by things that go bump when you least expect them and the guessing game of who the stalker is. We have ex husband Sam, Tyler the handyman, Rick the boss with a thing for Julie as well as Jim an intern at the office who takes a dislike to her. And we get a lot of scenes ending with men staring after talking to Julie to try and make it even more of a guessing game. The chances are you will predict who is behind it all because as I said logic gets tossed out of the window early on whilst subtlety seems to have been ripped out of the director's dictionary.

But the thing is that whilst "House of Secrets" has many faults it is also done in that easy to watch style which many made for TV movies are. It means that if you are more bothered about a movies pacing and look rather than the detail and logic then there is a very good chance you will enjoy this especially with various moments designed to make you jump.

What this all boils down to is that "House of Secrets" is not going to be for everyone as it is both predictable and riddled with flaws. But for those who are not expecting excellence from everything they watch then it may entertain.


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