FAMILY SECRET MOVIE REVIEW - BY BRAD COONEY

One thing that I very easily could have done was to go into this movie holding on to my personal feelings about the Director of "Family Secret" but I chose not to do that. Yea it would have been fun to have ripped this movie to shreds, and most people in my shoes probably would have.


I rented the movie on Amazon.com and went into the movie fully intending on giving it a fair review, and that's what I will do.

Basically the movie is about Geno McGee, (a small town reporter) and his Grandmother's death. After the Grandmother dies, she comes back. She's pissed off and slashes up everybody that crosses her path. Without giving up too much of the plot, I'll stop there and review the good and bad that I saw in the movie.

Let's start off with the bad. There were some things in the movie that I thought were poorly thought out. One of them being the age factor between actor "Crazy" Carl Robinson, who plays Geno McGee Sr, and Forris Day Jr, who plays Geno McGee Jr. They both looked about the same age, so it was pretty tough seeing one play the father and one play the son.

A lot of the acting was poor. This no doubt was because of the movie's 14 thousand dollar budget. Obviously with a bigger budget more experienced actors could have been hired. With that said, it is what it is, and the acting in the movie was below average.

The music being played during the killings was not so scary, and the weapon being used by the slashing Granny looked like a cheap toy from a toy store.

The movie did however have some cool moments and not all of the acting was poor. I thought three of the actors in the movie shined. Leeann Aubuchon, who played the wife of Geno was excellent. I am not sure if she has had previous acting experience but it certainly looked as if she did. If she didn't she definitely has a future in acting if she chooses to go forward with it.

I thought that Forris Day Jr who plays Geno McGee did a good job. He had a leading roll which is not so easy. Was he outstanding? No. Did he suck? nope, he did a good job.

My favorite character by far in the move was played by Alex Pierpaoli. He played Gary Vershon, a racist, and obnoxious father who drank, and basically had a problem with everyone in the film. Pierpaoli did an excellent job throughout the movie.

The strongest part of the film was the storyline. It's a typical type horror movie, with below average acting (with the exception of the three actors mentioned above) with a good storyline.

The special effects with the amount of money McGahee had to work with were fair. I have actually seen worse in movies that had a much larger budget.

So here is how I sum this movie up. The work put into the movie was obvious. There was definitely some hard work put forth to make the movie. The acting in the movie was not so great. There were three actors out of many who shined, as mentioned above. The special effects were fair, not bad for the money that the Director had to work with.

There was a cool cameo appearance near the end of the film by former 3 time world boxing champion Jose Antonio Rivera. Rivera played an FBI agent, with a twist.

The film had a good storyline. It was good enough to keep me watching it rather than walk off. I walked out of the theater a few months ago when I went to go see the movie "Machete" which had actors such as Robert DeNiro and Steven Segal.

All things considered with the low budget and actors with little to no experience I give this movie a 4.5 out of the 1 to 8 8countnews movie meter. I have seen much worse films in theaters with much bigger budgets.