El espejo roto

'The Murder Secret' aka 'Don't Be Afraid of Aunt Martha' is a strange low budget Giallo slasher flick from the late 1980's. This movie has a cool off-kilter atmosphere and an eerie unsettling tone to it, along with some cool gory death scenes. But its not without its flaws such as the awful dubbing, questionable acting/dialogue, bad pacing and predictable plot twists that really bogs things down to sub-par levels.

The plot = Richard Hamilton (Gabriele Tinti) takes his family for a long drive to his Aunt Martha's (Sacha Darwin) house after she has just been released from the asylum after 30 years. Only when they get there, she isn't there just the caretaker Thomas (Maurice Poli) and his message that she will arrive the next day, but can they survive the night with a killer roaming the area.

The direction by Mario Bianchi is competent enough considering the obvious small budget and the cottage location is used effectively enough, but as I already mentioned the pacing is very boring with almost nothing happening for the first hour, I wouldn't mind if the director used this time to flesh out the family or to build some tension. But we don't get any of that unfortunately instead we get a rather mundane set up of pointless interactions with nothing happening. Even with this wafer-thin plot there was potential to add more depth to this movie, but nope instead you're just waiting around until the last act which is where all the excitement happens. Now the death scenes towards the end are rewarding as you do get some shocking violent scenes, but it requires a lot of patience to get there and even then the climax ends on a rather sour and confusing note.

The acting was god-awful the only performance of note worthy was the main lead Gabriele Tinti who was okay but felt way too passive and uninspired to really root for. Overall 'The Murder Secret' is a confusing mess of a Giallo that takes way too long to get off the ground.

This movie was one hard to find little treasure. If anyone has seen Fulci's "Cat in a Brain" then you most likely have seen some of the death scenes from this flick. A family of four are heading over to stay at Aunt Martha's house for a few days. Apparently, Aunt Martha has been in a psych ward for a good portion of her life and just got out a month earlier. So, she feels compelled to invite her nephew and his family over to celebrate. The problem starts when they arrive. Aunt Martha is not there. Only the caretaker of the estate explains that Aunt Martha got caught up in out of town business and will arrive next morning. Will the family make it through the night? This is not a bad flick. The movie gets a bad wrap because the first hour of the movie is just a lot of atmosphere and character development. The movie does have a pretty good musical score carrying through most of the film. And yes, there is a very obnoxious little brat in the movie (who does get his). Once you get past the first hour the film picks up to several decent gore scenes and a very unusual ending. All in all, not a bad movie and I give it a 7/10.

The Murder Secret was apparently 'overseen' by the great Lucio Fulci. I have no idea what that means, but the great director does have a producer's credit so maybe adding his name to it wasn't just a shameless attempt to sell the film (or maybe it was). Anyway, the film is actually directed by Mario Bianchi who you may (but hopefully not!) remember from the likes of A Girl for Satan and Emanuelle in the Country. The film takes on a mystery/Giallo tone and I get the impression that it could have been rather good with better handling, actors and atmosphere. Anyway, the plot focuses on a family that are making the drive see the father's Aunt Martha. They arrive at the rather large house to find that Martha is not there, but will arrive the next morning. Unbeknown to everyone but the father, Martha has until recently been a guest in a mental hospital. The family is invited in by the caretaker to stay the night while they wait for the Aunt to arrive, but soon after they begin being murdered.

The film is rather slow for the first hour and not a great deal happens. I actually have no problem with this in theory as a good build up can only be an asset to a mystery film; but unfortunately this build up can't really be considered good as nothing really happens. Lucio Fulci's "influence" kicks in at about the hour mark when the murders finally start happening, and they're fairly bloody - a decapitation with a chainsaw is a particular highlight. The plot itself isn't bad really, but the characters let it down as not a single one of them is interesting and we really just end up waiting for them to be picked off. The film has no style to speak of and the look of the film is extremely bland - a shame considering that atmosphere tends to be one of the best things about good Italian horror. The dubbing is atrocious also, and the soundtrack is one of the worst I've ever heard in an Italian horror film. It all boils down to a terrible ending, which is a shame because it was starting to look like it might finish well. Still, I don't want to totally condemn to the film; it does have its moments and to be honest I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff. Italian horror fans may find something to like...but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to find it.

After spending 30 years in a mental hospital, aunt Martha is free to leave and writes a letter to her relatives, inviting them to spend a weekend on her isolated country house. But when they get there, they meet only the caretaker, who informs them that their aunt has not arrived yet....After 50 slow minutes of virtually NOTHING HAPPENING, there are a few gory murders, and then it's time for the twisted secrets and nonsensical plot revelations. As it often happens in these Italian horror films, there is a very atmospheric score, which actually does most of the director's work for him. And I must mention that the actress who plays the daughter (Jessica Moore) is really hot. There are two scenes of her checking herself out in the mirror, and let me tell you, this girl has every right to be proud of what she sees. (*1/2)

As too often the case, the international English titles of this film are utterly insignificant and dumb. Seriously, what does "The Murder Secret" mean? And "The Broken Mirror" is even dumber, in fact. It's always better to literally translate the original Italian title, because "Don't be afraid of Aunt Martha" at least makes some sense! In case you are also a fan of the almighty demigod Lucio Fulci, you most likely have seen the best gory parts of this film already, as they were edited into his phenomenally berserk masterpiece "A Cat in the Brain". It also means, unfortunately, there aren't many reasons left to track down the obscure "Don't be afraid of Aunt Martha", except if you're an avid admirer of Italian horror/cult cinema in general. For this selected group of people, of which I'm proudly a part, "Don't be afraid of Aunt Martha" is a real treat!

By lack of a better term, I'd label this as a late 80s giallo, since there's an unseen assailant butchering people in bloody imaginative ways. The plot is completely messed up and hints at several absurd denouement-twists at the end, the spooky soundtrack is terrific and writer/director Mario Bianchi is not afraid to overuse it, there's a supposedly teenage daughter (Jessica Moore) with a perfect body taking long and gratuitous showers and the gore is so explicit that even 10-year-olds cannot escape the whirring chainsaws. Richard Hamilton receives a letter from his aunt Martha to announce that she'll be leaving the mental asylum after 30 years, and he promptly takes his entire family out to her house in the countryside. Isn't that what any good father and husband would do? Aunt Martha isn't there, but the exaggeratedly friendly caretaker ensures them she'll be arriving the next day. Or maybe the day after that. If only they wait long enough, they will meet certain death! The pacing is incredibly slow, with only Gianni Sposito's gloomy soundtrack frequently reminding us that we are watching a horror movie. Then follows an outrageous 15 minutes with more than enough gore & sickness to justify why we love watching this junk!