Secrets of a Psychopath

Now here's something incredible: SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH marks the return to the screen, after a 26 year hiatus, of writer/director Bert I. Gordon, aka the notorious Mr. B.I.G., famed director of 1950s monster fare such as THE AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN and BEGINNING OF THE END! Bert's last film was 1989's SATAN'S PRINCESS, and I think I can safely say that we all assumed he had hung up his hat and taken a long-overdue retirement after that movie. Well, now he's back at the tender age of 93 and making films again!

Sadly, this is hardly a return to form for the old timer, as SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH is a near-unwatchable mess; an independent horror film featuring the talents of the ever-sexy Kari Wuhrer and not a lot elsewhere. The storyline is about a pair of unusual siblings and the murder plots that surround them, and of course there are the requisite flashbacks to earlier events that may or may not have had traumatic effects.

What it all boils down to is a lot of talk and not a lot else. The story is padded out with dull sex scenes and even duller murder scenes. I like Wuhrer as a B-movie starlet, I always have done, but the supporting cast that surrounds her here is uniformly awful, with some truly embarrassing overacting going on in places. Sadly, SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH is a curious footnote in Gordon's long-term career rather than anything truly of merit.

After reading all the reviews, they more or less pinned it down to one thing- dreadful. In every sense.From the amateur acting,script to the general messy organisation of it all. I found myself cringing lots and it was unintentionally funny. The only thing that redeemed this film was the music score perhaps.

Secrets of a Psychopath (2015)

** (out of 4)

Henry (Mark Famiglietti) and Catherine (Kari Wuhrer) are a strange brother and sister pair who have some dark secrets. Henry, a social weirdo, meets various women online and we see the horrors that await them as they become too close to the pair.

The 93-year-old Bert I. Gordon returned to the director's chair for the first time in twenty-six years to direct this horror movie that's certainly far from awful but at the same time there's certainly nothing great here either. The movie certainly showed a lot of promise and featured a nice twist at the end but at the same time there were some flaws that kept it from being better.

I must say that for the most part I enjoyed the performances in the film and especially by Famiglietti and Wuhrer. I thought both of them were quite believable in their roles and I thought the whole brother-sister aspect was sold quite nicely. I also thought the film was very well-made and when you consider the budget it's even more impressive. A lot of these cheap direct-to-video releases look quite cheap and poor but that's not the case here.

The story itself was interesting enough to where it should have worked better but there's no question that there's very little impact here. The film was meant to be psychological thriller but there's really not any thrills here and the film is certainly never scary. I'd also argue that the film just never fully explored the dark nature of the story like it could have.

With that said, if you're a fan of the director's work then you'll notice this is far away from his "big" pictures. SECRETS OF A PSYCHOPATH isn't a masterpiece or even a good movie but there's certainly much worse out there.

Gorgeous woman, steadily moving story, decent acting and KARI WURHER!!!