User Reviews

House of Deadly Secrets (Beware there may be spoilers and a crazy old lady) This B-rated made for tv horror film is a little over the top (at least that's how we see this production). Maggie and her daughter, Ava, move into a new house on a quiet street at the beginning of this film. Maggie flips houses for a living and is freshly on her own after a breakup with her ex, Zeke. Patty McCormack steals the show as the their neighbor from across the street, sweet old "Sylvia". She quickly befriends Maggie and her true character begins to unfold. Sylvia's "husband" is being held hostage in his own home, only left with a wooden spoon to defend himself (and call for help). Unfortunately, that wooden spoon is also his downfall as Sylvia creatively shoves it down his throat to shut him up.

Sylvia is haunted by the "disappearance" of her own daughter at a young age and is willing to do anything to keep her memory alive. She begins to see her "Cindy" in little Ava and makes any excuse to let herself into Maggie's home. She really is crafty in this sense. As you guessed it, eventually Maggie and her reunited family defeat the crazy old neighbor together and survive to live another day.

Strongest: "Sylvia" - with her ability and brute force with wooden spoons, pushing, and stabbing - there's lots of muscle packed into this petite frail body.

Most gullible: Maggie - making friends so quickly with "Sylvia" - she's old she must be trustworthy.

Most creative evil plan - "Sylvia" again when she pays off the bum to sleep in Maggie's home. Tricky tricky!

Overall grade: C+

I don't leave many reviews but I will watch any horror/thriller whatever as they tend to be underrated. This one is SERIOUSLY OVER-rated. I should have checked reviews first, but got lazy.

Possible spoilers below:

None of this made sense from a purely human aspect. What woman can fight off a man, rehab a house, yet cave in to her separated husband let her stereotypical mother-in-law live with her? Just horrible writing, acting (for the most part) and for a husband who supposedly travels 3 weeks per month, he seemed to be around a heck of a lot. Trust me, skip this one. It was like watching a bad lifetime movie.

This Lifetime thriller is quite cute. A separated mother and her little girl move in to a old fixer upper. A nice old lady next door helps her out after she is hurt fixing a fan.

Things get funny when Mother in law moves in to help out.

It's an nice little change of villain the white haired old lady next door. The acting is okay and the story ties in at the end. Enjoyed this one for the difference.

This movie is so boring and bad. The Bad Seed is a classic, so you'd almost think by hiring Patty McC, the writers and producers would take advantage of it. Another movie that probably looked better on paper.

One of the issues with these movies is that so many of the villains are waifs or elderly. They always get the upper hand on their victims w/o any struggle at all. Could this happen in real life? Sure. Is this believable on screen? Absolutely not. This old lady is skulking around the home with the family in it, and mind you, it's an old house.....no creaking boards? She keeps breaking into their home Is she a ghost? One of early scenes involved the protag finding a squatter in her house...but then Sylvia is able to waltz right in. I guess Maggie wasn't scared enough to lock the doors? OH! And she also breaks grandma's neck w/her bare hands. And she stabs a man and drags his big burly body on her own. I mean what is this? I'm also supposed to believe this lady can take a wooden spoon and have enough power to stab a man? Another irritating thing about these movies is that the characters almost NEVER connect a new person in their lives with all the death and destruction around them. It's pathetic.

This movie would have been better if they literally lifted all of Rhoda's methods of killing from The Bad Seed. Ice for slip n falls, beating someone with shoes, and fires. That would have been way more believable than what they produced. This also could have been a decent tv ghost/horror movie, but the clownish ways of the villain and the general bad acting makes that impossible. Patty is great and her villain breakdown is good.

PS...you'll figure out the plot anyway, so what was the point of moving out of the house after the daughter's death? If you have secrets wouldn't you stay there and not move to another house in the neighborhood? Also, Lifetime loves to have movies involving house flips. They really know how to run something into the ground.

What a gawd awful movie. Everything is bad - the acting, the direction, the dialog, the pacing, the screenplay...

It starts off as a supernatural movie, which I was ready for, then just minutes into the movie, you know the whole predictable plot.

The mom was a complete airhead. The best actors in the movie was the old guy and he couldn't talk and was stuck in a wheelchair and the old wino.

Spoilers below...

So, mom, you know this woman is a nutjob. Your daughter is sitting right beside her while she waves a gigantic butcher knife around and you just stand there conversing for 10 minutes while she becomes more and more agitated????

Then, instead of letting the cops do their job, you tamper with a crime scene!!!

There's no rainy afternoon that warrants watching this nonsense. Go watch "Bad Seed" instead.

Bad acting and very predictable, the back stories of the characters were ridiculous. A garden that hadn't been changed in years. No parole officer checking on the old lady. Other neighbours never question her living there,no explanations how an old lady can lift a grown man into the boot of a car,or how she managed to frame the homeless man who the owner forgot had scared the life out of her on the first night ! And the stupid husband Launching a huge knife over a fence not knowing who it will hit!! Avoid.

Though I didn't think that this movie was as bad as many people here are claiming it to be, I do understand to a degree why some people have had a negative reaction. It is a pretty low budget affair, having the air of a Hallmark made for television movie all the way through it, though it does look like the filmmakers managed to squeeze every last penny out of their pitiful budget. Also, the story is to a great degree pretty predictable, with plot turns you've probably seen in many other domestic thrillers before. Most disappointing, however, is the climax of the movie. Instead of being thrilling and exciting, the climax has almost no suspense or thrills. On the positive side, the characters are pretty down to earth and believable for the most part. As for Patty McCormack, she manages to play a believably twisted woman (with a sweet side) with a pretty entertaining performance that keeps you watching the movie despite all its shortcomings. I can't speak for everybody, but as I said, I didn't think the movie was THAT bad. You might find it okay as I did... as long as you are in a pretty undemanding mood, as I was when I sat down to watch it.