I deserve some type of award or congratulations for watching the entirety of this putrid film dubbed a scary movie. If this was a scary movie it was definitely a scary movie for kids because it didn't even nudge the spook-o-meter.What is clear is that, although I watched this on Netflix, this was a made-for-T.V. flick complete with television cinematography, a weak script and fades to black at teaser moments. This sanitized movie with squeaky clean language, bland characters and even blander dialog was like a Disney Channel Halloween special. "Secrets in the Walls" could've been rated G.This production offered nothing by way of originality, drama, intensity or simple interest. Even the music defied what the movie was trying to achieve... Or what was this movie trying to achieve?

SPOILER: Divorced mum and her two young daughters move into a big old house that's price is too good to be true. Soon strange things start to happen, and just what is that false wall doing there?Secrets in the Walls doesn't offer up anything new to the haunted house formula, and the premise bears a striking similarity to a Richard Matheson story, but it is effective at what it does. Standard haunted house rules apply, with creaks, a music box, a creepy grate, spooky drawings and boo-jump shocks via reflections and peek-a-boo dark corners. It's competently performed by Jeri Ryan, Marianne Jean-Baptise, Kay Panabaker and Peyton Roi List, Christopher Leitch's direction is up to scratch for the spook and shiver narrative, and the music and photography tech credits are not intrusive and therefore well utilised for sustained suspense.It's a safe recommendation to fans of the haunted house splinter of horror, and coming out of the Lifetime Movie Network it's impressive to find it's better than a lot of bigger budgeted Hollywood genre pictures that have trundled out in recent years. 7/10

Molly and Lizzie live with their mom in a crowded apartment building. Mom buys a huge and very old house away from the city life they're used to from a sleazy real-estate agent who doesn't tell them about the missing woman who lived there decades ago.Lizzie is happy to have her own room, a large room in the basement. Her family helps her knock down the useless wall so that her room will be bigger, and in doing so they release a force that terrorizes the family and eventually possesses Lizzie with the spirit of a German woman who was sealed alive in the walls.Secrets in the Walls is your basic cliché ghost story. Lizzie is a shallow, boring character with no personality, and as usual they pull the emo routine with her by making the ghost attack her and making it appear as though Lizzie hurt herself. Molly is a typical blonde, whiny-voiced, bratty little girl who, as in most ghost story films like Poltergeist and the Messengers, can perceive bad events and sense the ghost. The trailer-trash mom is pretty boring but her co-worker, the medium, was a very interesting character. The soundtrack was bad, especially the song that played when the family was knocking the wall down, it was an unnecessary pop song that really added the element of annoying to the movie. The ghost was typical, its past boring and a copy of other movies. The ending was pretty cheesy and the acting was terrible, but the scenery was pretty good so it deserves a few stars just for the nice old house. I think it was a beautiful house, not creepy by any stretch of the imagination. This movie is a great example of why Lifetime should just stick to making true crime and drama movies, horror doesn't work with them.

Secrets in the Walls is about a single mother who, after landing a great job in an area of town far from her apartment, fatefully stumbles across the perfect house after getting lost while trying to find her bus home. After moving her two daughters into the old house, strange events begin to take place as something seems to be stalking the older daughter, but only the younger daughter can sense how dangerous it really is.The elements that make up this story are derivative, but they're derivative done reasonably well, and the actors all seem to be having fun with it, which adds a lot to a B movie's watchability factor. Also, some spooky stuff really does go down, especially in the film's first half. The second half is bogged down by the fact that the villain is trying to hide in plain sight and it kind of cramps her spooky style, but by that point she has fully earned a comeuppance and the desire to see it come to pass is just enough to hold the viewer's attention.As to the derivative elements, there's a good deal of Haunting in Connecticut DNA here, as well as a splash of Amityville Horror, but the movie's biggest twist is lifted directly from The Ring. This movie isn't as good as any of those three, but it beats a lot of ghost stories I've seen on TV lately, and for a late night spent home alone, it's good enough to turn down the lights with a bowl of Parmesan popcorn and get creeped out.