Do You Wanna Know a Secret? (2001) Reviews

• Do You Wanna Know a Secret?

  Scarecrow-882009-03-23

  Simply awful slasher, molded from the I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER type of fodder, has beautiful wealthy college students spending spring break in a Florida condo being murdered one by one. A misfire in every category imaginable from properly built suspense to the executed death sequences..nothing is handled properly and the characters leave little more than caricatures you root to see decimated as quick as possible. Del Tenney(The Curse of the Living Corpse;I Eat Your Skin), of all people, executive produced, co-wrote, and stars as a priest in a pivotal role whose relationship to the killer I guess means something to why he's psychotic. The revelation of the killer is awkwardly handled and ineffective, probably not surprising a soul who watches it. There are a lot of attempted jump scares, with one character popping out to frighten their friend, which couldn't even manufacture a few cheap thrills, because they are so calculated in such a tepid way. Most of the attacks occur off-screen with bleeding throat cuts(..or pools)representing the only real display of violence. The protracted finale, where the killer goes on and on with the actor desperately trying to make his villain as diabolical and demented as possible, is embarrassing and tense-less. There's not one single positive to derive from this clichéd and dull exercise with the pretty cast making little effort to rise past their one-dimensional roles. And, for pity sake, they could've at least allowed us to see Joey Lawrence get decapitated or something for withstanding the misery of sitting through this junk heap for 90 agonizing minutes. Dorie Barton, as the heroine final girl, Beth Morgan, who the killer seems to be obsessed with, couldn't be more vacuous and uninteresting(..oh, she was in rehab, and takes pills for her nightmares;such intriguing exposition). Chad Allen, cast against type as a very intimidating "friend" of the group(..who happens to disappear from the film first, setting up the idea that he's the first victim), has a tough hill to climb with his role, so steep he eventually stumbles, rolling uncontrollably with no end in sight. Jeff Conaway, needing some cash I guess, has the beleaguered FBI agent role, whose daughter's murder motivates him to seek out the killer, leading him to Florida. Jack McGee has his usual a$$hole role as a smart-mouth Florida Police Chief who is often nose to nose with Conaway's agent. Oh, the answer to the title's question..not really. Because once you get the answer, you will wonder why you bothered with this anyway.

• Weak entry, could've been better

  slayrrr6662007-05-20

  "Do You Wanna Know a Secret?" is a lame and fairly unexciting slasher. **SPOILERS** A year after a college massacre, students Hank Ford, (Joseph Lawrence) his girlfriend Beth Morgan, (Dorie Barton) and their friends Tina Webster, (Leonora Scelfo) Nellie Lopez, (Elsie Escobar) Oz Washington, (Tom Jay Jones) and Brad Adams, (Chad Allen) arrive in Florida for Spring Break. Renting a house for the time, they start drinking and having a good time together until past incidents are exposed. As they prepare to go to a local rave, their emotions still get the best of them. As people around them start to die one-by-one, tensions mount as they believe each other did it, as they all have secrets to hide from each other. When they continue to meet gruesome deaths, they piece together the clues and solve the killer's identity before they kill again. The Good News: There isn't a whole lot here that actually works. The biggest issue is that the film does manage to sell the creepy house they're staying in a place of potentially suspenseful. There's lots of long hallways, creepy furniture and statues that adorn the walls and large glass windows that allow in lots of light into the rooms. It manages to stay a threat mainly due to it's appearance once it's been discovered that the friends are starting to get knocked off. The tension at not knowing who or where the killer is. That gives it some pretty nice suspense in the middle of the film, due to it's location. The main bloodshed acts in the house are pretty good, as there's several deaths all pretty close to each other. The scene where they're all in the rave is pretty entertaining in a realistic manner, as it's exactly the kind of behavior to be expected in that kind of environment from those involved. All these, though, are the film's main points. The Bad News: This here is a really lackluster slasher with some major flaws. One of the main ones is a really, really staggered pace. There's absolutely nothing going on in here for about forty minutes in this, then there's about a five minute phase where everyone gets killed off, then nothing until the very end. The fact that the ending is completely dragged out far beyond what it should've been is another big error, making things take longer than it could've been done had it in a much shorter fashion. This really negates much of the ending's impact, which wasn't that much to begin with as it takes forever to spill to the characters what the audience had known since the film started. That's another problem, as the film is really easy to predict and no real surprises come from it. Plot turns are fairly simple to guess and don't have any real shock when they come as they were sign-posted early on and don't really mean much. The killer in this is the biggest one, as the mask chosen devalues the fear of this intensely. It's way too comical and non-frightening to make it serious they're a threat. Not harming matters is the fact that the deaths are a severe disappointment. There's only about two or three deaths actually done on-screen while the rest are all killed off-screen, and the ones on-screen are simply slit throats while the ones that would've appeared to be more adventurous are all off-screen. That's one of the most maddening things about it, and really helps to make this a really below par-entry. The Final Verdict: A few small areas of success and a lot of major problems doom this potentially entertaining but ultimately unsuccessful attempt. Had it followed through more on the slasher motives, this would be watchable, but as it is, this is really only recommended for the most die-hard slasher completists or those looking for a solid laugh-fest with friends. Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and some drug use

• Do You Wanna Poke Your Own Eyes Out With A Rusty Spoon?

  Coventry2007-05-22

  No? Didn't think so! Well, in that case all you have to do is stay far, far away from "Do You Wanna Know A Secret", as it's just the umpteenth pointless post-"Scream" slasher with absolutely no redeeming value whatsoever. The plot is extremely ridiculous; the characters are insufferably dumb, the gore-factor is negligible and the whole thing is just plain boring! As you can derive from the title already, this film is mainly inspired by "I Still Know What You Did Last Summer", as the events take place in a similar setting and the killer's motivations are equally stupid. Why anyone would want to steal ideas from junk like "IKWYDLS" is a complete mystery to me, anyway. At least that film could depend on the precious rack of Jennifer Love Hewitt, whereas the girls in this junk are, apart from brainless, also terribly unattractive. One year after the still unsolved murder of her boyfriend, Beth Morgan, her new adulterous lover and four other simple-minded college students go to Florida to spend their Spring Break holiday in a fancy beach house. The killer hasn't made a move all year, but now he follows the posse to Florida and starts butchering them whilst leaving behind the titular message as some sort of business card. You really don't need to be a horror-expert in order to quickly figure out which face hides behind the unspeakably ridiculous mask and the writers' attempts to put you on the wrong track are downright embarrassing. Since the plot is so thin, most of the film is purely irrelevant padding, including the sub plots regarding the incompetent Floridian police force and the 'mysterious' FBI inspector who seems to have a personal score to settle. The murder inexplicably happen off screen (don't you hate it when that happens?), there isn't even any gratuitous T&A to enjoy and you better don't get me started on the quality of the dialogs. Suffering through crap like this only makes you realize that the delightful spirit of the 80's slashers is gone for good.

• The only good thing about this movie (If anything.) is Joseph 'Joey' Lawrence.

  famousgir12001-09-09

  Do You Wanna Know A Secret is one of the worst slasher movies out there. After, the brilliant Scream came out loads of copy-cat movies came out. (The only great ones were, Valentine, I know what you did last summer 1+2, Urban Legend 1+2 and H20.) Some weren't so bad but this one is awful. Joseph Lawrence stars in this movie, and he's okay here but the rest of the cast are bad and I mean bad. I don't think we'll be seeing much of them in the acting industry. The person who turned out to the killer was ridiculous and most of the film just wasn't believable. I give Do You Wanna Know A Secret a 2/10.

• Not *THAT* bad

  ofjeworstlust2006-02-05

  Suppose you've been on a deserted island the last ten years. Haven't heard of Scream and left when Halloween part 1 entered the cinema. Then this movie would have been a blast and a completely new vision on the horror scene. At the moment, a 2.7 rating is on IMDb and it doesn't deserve a that low appreciation. Slashing all the way, like "I know what you did", and a who-is-it that when getting to the end convinced me of that who-and-why. No big surprise, just a nice flick to watch with a cola, popcorn and no urge to get a difficult plot, deep characters. If the video rental is out of the top titles, you can take it without a risk, but don't expect a masterwork. I've seen a lot worse.