Grave Secrets

A woman tormented by ghostly apparitions and a professor of psychic phenomena (Paul LeMat) investigate other-worldly disturbances and unlock the secret of a malevolent force reaching out for vengeance from beyond the grave.

Oh, Paul LeMat, how the almost mighty have fallen. You went from being a star in "American Graffiti" to doing this film and "Puppet Master". You could have been a contender! Now, I am not trying to be rude, Paul. You are a fine actor and have a strong screen presence. How did you start getting these offers rather than blockbusters? Why did Harrison Ford get to be Han Solo instead of you?

The story and effects here are not bad, sort of like a toned down "Ghost Busters" (and not nearly as funny). Except here you sort of have to coax ghosts out rather than capture them. (In "Ghost Busters" they seem to be eternal and can only be stored. Here they "cross over" if wrongs have been put right.)

I cannot say this is the best film about a haunting. Not by far. But it is not bad, either. Watch this only if you have already seen "Changeling" -- that is a far superior film.

Holy moly, was this hard to get through. I have to confess to watching it in two parts and, by the time I'd got round to watching the second half, I'd pretty much forgotten what had gone on before. I decided to start again from the beginning until I realised that nothing much of any interest had happened and I could just skip back to the midway point where I'd originally left off.

It feels like one of those 'made-for-TV' movies based off a Stephen King story that seemed to be very popular in the eighties. Those weren't very good - and yet they were head and shoulders over this offering. It's about a woman who's troubled by a ghost and, seeing as the 'Ghostbusters' were obviously way too busy to help out, she enlists the help of a college professor with an interest in the paranormal.

And, er, that's about it for the most part. Almost nothing happens until about ten minutes before the end. The characters are ugly (meow!) and they do quite dumb things. It looks like the film-makers put everything into one make-up scene a few almost passable special effects right at the end. But that was way too little too late to make this worth sitting through.

This is an unknown gem of a movie that has some real chills. Like much of it's genre it shows too much at the end and falls apart while fumbling for an (unsatisfying) explanation of the events. Overall, definitely recommended over the "Scream" rip-offs or "Exorcist" rip-offs of the late 70s and early 80s. If it were released today it would probably be a modest box office success.

Look for some conceptually innovative supernatural activity!

Troubled Iris seeks the help of a paranormal psychologist/university professor who himself can't let go of his deceased wife and thus is about to be fired, to investigate hauntings at her cabin.

I saw this film on Instant Netflix under the title "Secret Screams", but no matter which moniker the movie goes by it's awful nonetheless. the acting is sub-par, the little special effects the film uses are hokey even for '80's standards, nothing really happens for a good 2/3rds of the movie and the plot is simply a jumbled mess. chalk this one up as an exercise in tedium.

My Grade: D-

Grave Secrets is a fairly routine paranormal mystery with some dated ghostly special effects, but it does develop into a deliciously twisted tale towards the end, so hang in there: Iris Norwood (Renée Soutendijk) is bothered by spooky occurrences at her bed and breakfast home, so she enlists the help of paranormal expert David Shaw (Paul Le Mat). Staying at the B&B for a few days, David witnesses the strange events first hand and slowly unravels the mystery behind the haunting - it transpires that Iris is being terrorised by the headless ghost of her abusive father Kurt, who raped her and made her pregnant, and then buried her baby alive after she gave birth!!! That's some seriously unhinged stuff right there!

Since much of the film is rather sedate, with the spooky stuff limited to floating books and records, patience is definitely required, but there is a modicum of fun to be had along the way with David's dippy fashion disaster PA Darla (Olivia Barash), who tries to attract her boss's attention by bending over in front of him in a short skirt, and with David Warner as a medium, who conducts a seance in the haunted house. The final act finally delivers the more demented stuff, as David and Iris follow Kurt's ghost to find out where he buried baby Brian; however, they must do battle with her zombified father when a local guy inadvertently reunites the spook with his missing head! Naff '90s visual FX abound.