Chabert Watch: When Secrets Kill (1997)

Watched:  05/24/2025

Format:  YouTube - someone posted this a bit and no one took it down

Viewing:  First

Director:  Colin Bucksey

blogger's note: if it seems like I'm blazing through the Chabert movies, I am.  We're getting close with 7 non-Christmas movies left, and then 5 Christmas movies.  It is a journey, y'all.  But it is inspiring me for what I'll do next.  And while I have enjoyed my time with Ms. Chabert, and I have plenty to say on it I'll sum up at the end, it also feels like I'm in the home stretch after 62 Chabert movies here since the Christmas season kicked into gear.  

Man, made-for-cable TV movies of the 1990's are buckwild.  It's easy to forget if you haven't seen one in a while.  

When Secrets Kill (1997) is based on a Patricia MacDonald novel, and she's a prolific mystery author who does quite well.  I have no idea how true to the book this is, but it is wacky.  

The version I watched was commercial free and seemed like it was encoded from VHS tape, complete with bad picture and warbly, distorted audio, which made for some tough viewing.   And, of course, the 1990's ever-present synth score.  

I associate 1990's cable flicks with Lifetime Movies, which were such a weird mix of noir and domestic concerns aimed at an imagined audience of women (babysitters stealing babies, babysitters stealing husbands, babysitters stealing babies and husbands.).  And, certainly, a Bio-Mom returning falls into this realm.  But this aired across multiple channels, so I don't know who owned it.

Our plot:  A couple (Gregory Harrison and Roxanne Hart) are mourning a stillbirth of a much-wanted baby.  On Mother's Day, their adopted tween-daughter (Chabert) doesn't show up for brunch, and they head home as Mom doesn't want to celebrate anything.  After a brief fight at home, Chabert's birth mother appears at the door without invitation.  This is, of course, stressful.  

Two days later, Bio-Mom is dead in a dumpster, and everyone is a suspect.  Including a pervy motel manager.  Turns out, Dad was sleeping with Bio-Mom?  Maybe?  And Bio-Mom was also sleeping with the investigating cop (Timothy Busfield)?  Who is actually a serial killer or something?  

It's A LOT.  

There are real issues here about a young girl who knows she's adopted feeling less-than when her parents are mourning their lost unborn baby, and what happens when a bio-mom shows up unannounced.  But the movie just keeps adding the crazy and upping the body count.  

I'll be honest, I had to find a chat from 20 years ago online, because when I tried to start writing this up, I was unsure of what had actually happened.  For example, there was a body in the cop's basement and they showed it so briefly, I had no idea who it was.  But mostly, everyone's motivations are murky, the big clue is revealed in a letter - not seen, and I was unclear at the end of the movie if Gregory Harrison was Chabert's bio-dad or if it was Busfield or an unnamed third party.

What's also odd about it is that there's no real main character.  It feels like it should be Mom, but she's kind of ineffective and weepy.  Harrison seems like he should be a man of action, but until the end, he mostly runs away and keeps secrets (that kill!).  

Arguably it's a tag-team effort to stop Busfield, but Harrison gets to be a gun-toting hero at the end (I don't really know where he got the gun, tbh).  But no one comes off super great, including Chabert's character who runs into the line of fire, getting Harrison shot.

Also, I have no idea if Lifetime is even a going concern in 2025.

Is it stupid?

I mean...  I guess it all hangs together, but it's not exactly the best film and the ending is so kooky, it feels like a dodge by the writer to not make the killer one of the parents.  It's like we should have a whole other movie to explain what happened in the letter that was the damning evidence - because that sounds way more interesting than this movie.  And we never get much of a picture of what's happening with Busfield other than he has a depressed wife.

Chabert was a good actor as a kid.  I think she's playing a year or two younger here than she was, but it works fine.  She's maybe one of the better child-actor success stories.  But she was deep in Party of Five and a former Broadway star by this point, so I guess it's not shocking.