Secrets to Kill For (2025 Lifetime Movie)
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Cast: Courtney Grace, Malena Cunningham Anderson, Aria Celeste Castillo
Director: Dave Thomas
Writer(s): Lauren Greenwood
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DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlySynopsis (via Lifetime)
When Shanice learns her friend, June, is missing, she returns home to help in the search. She suspects June’s boyfriend, but when June is found dead and Shanice becomes a target, she learns the murderer might be much closer to home.
Recap/Wine Thoughts
The movie starts with a woman named June running through the woods, screaming her head off. Someone chases her while shooting a shotgun, which is just impractical. June throws a journal on the ground and says it is the only place she wrote their secrets. Then we get the title card.
One week earlier, we meet Shanice Wilson and an influencer who jogs on a college campus while listening to 70s porno music. Shanice runs a social media blog called Social Ember and offers a friendship speed dating event.
June, Shanice’s BFF, comes to town unexpectedly and stays the weekend in her guest room. June is not okay and needs a break from everything, especially her suffocating boyfriend, Lee. June has a welded necklace on her neck that Lee gave her, and she wants to cut it off. She is done with him because he thinks she cheated on her and has been surveilling June. There is also something about Foster parents, but IDK if that matters right now. June shows Shanice a journal they kept as teens.
Lee follows June and says he loves her. Shanice shuts him down and calls Lee a stalker. June tries to break it off with Lee, but he continues to call. The next morning, June has made up with Lee and leaves just as abruptly as she came. Shanice calls her friend to check in, but they miss one another.
June is back running through the woods, so I guess it has been a week. June begs for her life, but is shot point-blank.
Haven, a friend of June’s and Shanice’s, calls to see if June left the city. Shanice goes back to her hometown to see what’s going on. June has been spending a lot of time with Shanice’s parents, specifically Shanice’s dad, Stan. (Who has a hunting hobby?)
Lee is creeping around Shanice’s house and insists that June was having an affair with Stan. Lee also tries to grab June’s journal that someone anonymously sent in the mail. Some pages are missing, and Shanice sees some pen indents and rubs a pencil over them to reveal what was taken out. Shanice tells her parents everything, except the affair allegations.
Shanice calls the cops the next day, and her old high school crush, Glen, is assigned to the case. Shanice gives him June’s journal, and he tells her that Lee is a suspect with a shady past. Glen invites Shanice to join the search party the next day. It isn’t the date she was expecting, but Shanice goes to help anyway. She is partnered with Haven, and they hate each other, but we are not sure why yet. They find June’s body in the woods.
When Shanice comes home, her dad is doing yard work, and Shanice notices June’s necklace in the leaves. It upsets her greatly, and Shanice goes to her room to lie down, but her room has been ransacked. Someone was searching for June’s journal.
Haven and Shanice still hate one another, but they work together to figure out what happened to June. They find Lee’s laptop in June’s house and watch the videos he filmed when he thought she was cheating on him. It is all videos of June and Stan holding hands. Shanice shows her stepmom the video, and the stepmother laughs at Shanice’s interpretation of the video, it wasn’t like that.
Shanice goes for a run, and someone shoots at her with an arrow. Shanice calls Glen, who rushes to save her. The arrow has a note attached to it that says, “Tell anyone about the video and die!”
Shanice doesn’t stop investigating and tells Haven everything. Haven checks in with a friend in the ER to determine June’s cause of death. It turns out to be Water Hemlock Poisoning. Before Haven can tell Shanice, someone attacks her from the backseat. Haven survives and shares what she learned, like NOTHING happened?!?
Meanwhile, Shanice looks into her stepmother’s past. Pauline has a motive to kill June if the affair rumors were true. Shanice meets with Pauline’s aunt, who tells her that Pauline has been a private person all her life and had a baby out of wedlock, but hid it from almost everyone. Shanice suspects that June was Pauline’s secret daughter.
Lee shows back up on Shanice’s property and causes a scene. He gets into it with Stan, but Glen shows up and arrests Lee after finding June’s murder weapon in the trunk of his truck. Glen asks Shanice to let him worry about the investigation.
That, of course, doesn’t happen. Shanice talks to Pauline about her secret pregnancy and finds the missing pages in a desk drawer. Pauline is annoyed with Shanice’s prying and tells her to mind her business. Then they talk about Shanice’s biological mother dying young from grand mal seizures, from unknown causes.
Lee is released from jail and has a solid alibi. He tries one last time to convince Shanice that he didn’t hurt June, but he is shot in the front yard and killed.
Shanice realizes that Pauline was framing Lee for June’s murder. Pauline loves flowers and poisoned everyone with Water Hemlock tea. Pauline killed June and Shanice’s mother to try to keep the fact that she was Shanice’s mother. Pauline carried Shanice for Stans first wife, but got rid of her after realizing she didn’t want to give up her baby.
Shanice runs into the woods, and Pauline chases her. Stan stops Pauline from harming Shanice any further. Glen shows up and arrests Pauline, and gives Shanice more pages to read. They don’t end up together, which is disappointing.
The movie ends with Stan and Haven visiting Shanice in the big city. She offers them TEA!?!?! WTF, too soon, Shanice!
STRAY Thoughts
What the hell is Water Hemlock? Is that a normal thing I should be familiar with?
Overall rating
Number of Kills: 🔪🔪 (2 knives)
Lifetime Tropes: Running through the woods, Murder, Baby Mama Drama, Bad Boyfriend.
Enjoyment Level (1-5 scale)
🍷 (1 Glass of Wine)
Should you watch it?
Pour it Up (Give it a shot!)
Put a Cork in It (Skip It!)
What did you think of the movie? Let me know in the comments or on social media at @LifetimeUncorked and @patrickmiguel.
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*Photo Credit: © 2025 A&E Television Networks, LLC.
Let me know what you thought of the movie in the comments below or @lifetimeuncorked
I was lowkey hoping for it to be the jilted ex boyfriend
I know, like it was right there and then they had to over complicate
I enjoyed the movie. It was a pretty complicated plot. I read this because I wasn’t sure whether or not Lee had died. Thanks for clarifying some of what happened that I had missed. You left out the part that Pauline had drugged Shanice which slowed her down when she was trying to run away.