The Murder Secret

Your enjoyment of this film 80's Italian horror flick will probably depend somewhat on your expectations. If you're expecting a superior Lucio Fulci film (Fulci produced this), you'll probably be somewhat disappointed (but to be fair it's really no worse than a lot of the stuff the gore-master himself was directing at the end of his career). On the other hand though, if you've seen any of the previous work of Mario Bianchi, the actual director of this (for instance, his deadly dull "Satan's Baby Doll") you'll no doubt find this one comparatively entertaining.

A family, consisting of a father (Gabriele "Mr. Laura Gemser" Tinti), his second wife (Adriana Russo), and his three children--a young son, a voluptuous "teenage" daughter (Jessica Moore), and his adult son who shows up later--all drive out to a secluded family estate to meet the father's "Aunt Martha" who has just been released after spending thirty years in a mental institution for the criminally insane. Naturally this sounds like bad idea, but if dumb characters didn't do dumb stuff like this, we'd have a lot less gory horror movies. The place is managed by a creepy caretaker and "Aunt Martha's" arrival is mysteriously delayed. Meanwhile, all kinds of strange things begin to occur. . .

This movie is not very well paced as almost all the murders take place in a ten minute period near the end. They're suitably gory at least--one thing I like about the Italians is that they have no compunctions about doing things like decapitating annoying child actors with chainsaws. Tinti is always enjoyable, even in roles like this where he's not making "the beast with two backs" with his more famous wife. Russo and Moore both have memorable nude scenes. I think the former might be the sister of the voluptuous Carmen Russo (they look a lot alike anyway) while the latter appeared in several Joe D'Amato movies like "11 Days, 11 Nights" and "Convent of Sinners". (Here she takes a very long and very hot shower that all by itself might be worth the price of admission). Unlike most latter-day Fulci films or Bianchi's earlier "Satan's Baby Doll", this is not yet available on legitimate DVD. But it really ought to be.

This terrifically trashy, but frequently fun low budget B-Horror is riotously replete with maniacal aunts and all manner of spooky, crudely exploitative Italianate B-horror lunacy! Produced by esteemed horror icon Lucio Fulci, starring charismatic actor Gabriele Tinti, and directed with 'relative' competency by Euro-cult hero Mario 'Satan's Baby Doll' Bianchi. While Mario Bianchi's initially tepid creepshow 'The Murder Secret' takes a wee while to come to the B-Movie boil, but when it finally reaches body temperature it righteously rewards the more patient horror fan with a scurrilous selection of screw-headed set pieces!

The benign inclusion of a tantalizing shower scene luridly exposing the gratifyingly buxom assets of super-starlet Jessica Moore effectively increases the film's more aggressively voyeuristic content! 'The Murder Secret' is no less bemusing a proposition than many of the Fulci/Lenzi helmed horror films from the same era, and might be more essential to those obsessive B-Movie mavens compelled to watch every gonzo, blood-spattered Italian horror made in the 80s! Happily, there is just enough warped, schlocky shenanigans in 'The Murder Secret' to merit a single viewing, and the distractingly zesty electronic score by maestro Gianni Esposito certainly didn't go unnoticed! Perhaps it might be time for a comprehensive Bianchi Blu-ray horror box set? In addition, ardent Lucio Fulci fans might care to note that this was one of the six films that had its bloodier elements edited into his audaciously skewed splatter masterpiece 'A Cat in The Brain'.

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.

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!