There are bad slashers, and then there are slashers so profoundly stupid they feel like a parody written by someone who has never actually seen one. Do You Wanna Know a Secret? (2001) is firmly in that second category—a 90-minute catastrophe wrapped in a rubber mask, starring Joey Lawrence from Blossom, Jeff Conaway cashing a check, and a group of actors so wooden you could sand and stain them.
This movie is the cinematic equivalent of someone whispering “boo” in a crowded nightclub and then slipping in a puddle of their own vomit. Let’s dissect this glorious trainwreck, shall we?
The Plot, if You Can Call It That
It begins with a college student finding a note under his dorm door: do you wanna know a secret? He assumes it’s from his girlfriend Beth (Dorie Barton). Spoiler: it’s not. Instead, it’s from a guy in a Party City cloak and a rubber mask who kills him in the hallway. That’s right—our killer’s modus operandi is essentially chain letters and cosplay.
Fast-forward a year. Beth and her new boyfriend Hank (Joey Lawrence, yes whoa Joey Lawrence) head to Florida with their friends Oz, Tina, Nellie, and Brad. You know the drill: horny twenty-somethings who are supposed to be “college kids” but all look like they’re about to start 401(k)s.
Naturally, they start dying one by one, with the killer leaving his signature message—do you wanna know a secret?—on walls, corpses, and apparently any surface he can reach with a red Sharpie. Subtlety is not this film’s strong suit. Neither is logic.
Murder, But Make It Incompetent
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Brad’s “death” on a sailboat: We’re told he’s gone after a bloody shirt floats in the water. Newsflash: if the audience doesn’t see the body, the guy’s not dead. Brad might as well have been holding a neon sign that read, I’m the killer, idiots.
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Club murder: Some creep tries to roofie Beth, only to get carved up in the alley. On his back, the killer carves the movie’s title. Imagine how much time that would take. This guy’s carving letters like he’s icing a cake, and no one notices?
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Poolside massacre: Tina and Nellie are dispatched in broad daylight at the pool. One throat-slitting happens while Nellie is literally swimming laps. Apparently chlorine isn’t just bad for hair; it also dulls survival instincts.
The kills are so lazy you start rooting for the killer, just to thin out the cast faster.
Performances: Or Lack Thereof
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Beth (Dorie Barton): Supposed to be the Final Girl, but mostly just wanders around looking like she lost her car keys.
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Hank (Joey Lawrence): Every line delivery screams, I thought this was going to be a rom-com. He gets his head cut off off-screen, which is honestly the kindest mercy this movie grants.
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Oz (Thomas Anthony Jones): Arrested, released, knocked out, tied up, untied… basically the designated punching bag of the film.
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Brad (Chad Allen): Our killer. His “big reveal” is that he’s in love with Beth, which is less of a shocking twist and more of a rejected Dawson’s Creek subplot. He stages his own death, murders everyone, and then delivers his villain monologue like he’s practicing for community theater.
And then there’s Jeff Conaway as the FBI agent. He pops up every 30 minutes like he wandered in from a different, slightly less embarrassing movie, only to save the day with the enthusiasm of a man ordering his fifth refill at Denny’s.
The “Secret”
So what’s the secret? Brace yourself: Brad loves Beth. That’s it. That’s the whole thing. He killed his friends, faked his own death, and chopped off Joey Lawrence’s head just because he couldn’t handle rejection. Forget Do You Wanna Know a Secret? This movie should’ve been called Do You Wanna Know an Incel’s Diary?
The movie even throws in an attempt at melodrama by revealing that Brad’s father was the dead pastor in the church. This revelation means absolutely nothing. It’s just another excuse for the screenwriter to type the word secret a few more times before the credits roll.
Production Values: Bargain Bin Horror
This movie looks like it was shot on a camcorder rented from Blockbuster’s “Weddings and Bar Mitzvahs” section. The killer’s mask? A shiny rubber face that looks like a rejected Halloween prop. The lighting? Half the scenes are so dark you wonder if someone forgot to pay the electric bill.
Even the blood looks like watered-down ketchup, and the deaths are filmed with all the suspense of a DMV line. At least slashers usually try to be fun. This one feels like homework.
Dumbest Moments
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Carving “do you wanna know a secret?” into a corpse’s back. Not only is it impractical, but it reads like a bad tattoo.
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Beth’s wedding-dress scene. Brad ties her up in a church, puts her in a veil, and explains his love. It’s supposed to be terrifying, but it plays like a Hallmark Channel remake of Silence of the Lambs.
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Oz’s arrest. He gets hauled in for the murders, then released ten minutes later after a cop is killed in a bathroom. Why even bother with this subplot?
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The final showdown. Brad is stabbed through the body, but still leaps up until the FBI agent shoots him. The movie won’t even let its villain die with dignity.
Why This Movie Hurts
Slashers are supposed to be simple: teens, killer, creative deaths, some nudity, repeat until credits. Instead, Do You Wanna Know a Secret? adds unnecessary melodrama, bad soap-opera acting, and a “secret” so dumb you feel dumber just hearing it.
It’s like the filmmakers watched Scream once, misunderstood every single thing about it, and then thought, “Hey, let’s make this but with Joey Lawrence.”
Final Thoughts
Do You Wanna Know a Secret? is the cinematic equivalent of spam email: pointless, cheap-looking, and somehow still around two decades later because no one bothered to delete it.
The only real secret here is how this movie ever got funded. Maybe the producers had blackmail material. Maybe they sacrificed a Blockbuster manager to Dagon. Either way, the world would’ve been better off if this “secret” had stayed buried in someone’s bottom drawer.
