Secrets in the Walls – OK, I Totally Lied About Lifetime Movies

Runtime: 89 minutes

Release Date: October 24, 2010

Rating: NR

Director: Christopher Leitch

Rachel is a single mother living in Detroit and trying to raise her daughters in a tiny apartment. After getting a good paying new job, she gets lost on her way home and wanders across a real estate agent with a home for sale. The agent tells her that the owner lives in another state, inherited the property, and just wants it sold. While she can't afford the price, she gets a second chance when the price significantly drops and immediately moves in with her kids.

Lizzie, the teenager and older of the two, instantly decides that she wants the large basement room to herself. Molly, her younger daughter, has a sixth sense about things and doesn't really like the house at all. Marty, Rachel's brother, thinks there is something wrong with the basement. As a contractor, he can't figure out why someone would put up a new wall that significantly reduces the square footage of the room. He also offers to stick around and help them get the house cleaned up and pretty.

As you can clearly tell by the title, Secrets in the Walls is about some type of secret hidden in the walls. Weird things start happening, like they head odd noises and find things moved. Molly insists that there is something wrong with the house but no one will listen. Rachel finally does some research into the house and learns that a young woman went missing years ago. He husband was somewhat abuse, but no one batted an eye when his 17 year old wife disappeared one night. When the ghost haunting her home decides to take things a step further, Rachel has to turn to a coworker for help.

Secrets in the Walls is an unbelievably cheesy movie that actually starts out pretty good and then takes a turn somewhere towards the middle. The first half was actually interesting enough to keep my attention, but then the director decided to shoehorn some other plot that made it completely unrealistic. If you don't want to read any spoilers, skip to the end.

With a name like Secrets in the Walls, you know what's coming. Rachel and Marty break through the new wall in the basement and find the missing girl was basically bricked up inside while still alive. The cops show up, take a report, move the body, and basically do little else. She thinks the story is over, but then we have like 30 minutes of the girl's ghost taking over Lizzie, which no one notices for way too long. I'd rather have a straight up ghost story that ends with the ghost leaving when they find her body and give her a proper burial.

We also get Belle shoved down our throats. Belle is a nurse who is psychic too and uses her “gift” while on the job. She shows up multiple times to talk about how Molly has the gift and what's probably happening in the house without actually doing anything. Belle literally tells her to find the body and then everything will go away, which doesn't happen.

I do have to give props for Rachel screaming at the real estate agent and warning the new owners that the house was haunted. If Secrets in the Walls ended a little sooner, I would have liked it a little better.