The Secrets We Bury

• Directed by Patricia E. Gillespie
• December 16, 2025 (US)
• ID

Secrets come to the surface when a missing father’s body is found buried in the family home.

The Secrets We Bury is one of those suggestions that popped up on Facebook and had the appearance of kind of murky thing that appeals to me. Dark secrets and all that coming to light. Focusing on the charmingly eccentric Mike Carroll, it is a human story that is very tragic while also positive in the strong bonds of love that hold the siblings together.

With their very Long Island accents the Carrolls (and one Darress) sound very down-to-Earth even if their words make them seem a little whacky. Then again you’re looking at a group of people that have spent nearly 60 years missing a father that turned out to be buried in the family basement. That would affect anybody.

The whole looking into the past, and what happened to their father was brought about by a coincidence of the youngest child (and central figure of the film) Mike Carroll. He meets a relative he never knew was his. These people were just down the street!

Rather than focus on making this a whodunit, it is more focused on the family’s complicated relationships with the facts, and the memory of their father George and a gentleman some but not all the siblings call Mr. Darress. To make things even more complicated one of the brothers in the family (Richard) is only a half sibling and the son of the man the majority believe murdered the father. It’s clear there’s a love for all, even the baby brother with whom there’s clearly a level of protective nature about those interviews.

The secrets aren’t just that of their father’s body in the basement. It’s family relations and of abuse-both sexual and emotional. While the father may have been physically abusive, the mother took up with another man who had his own share of issues.

What’s clearly going on is a lack of definitive answers has left a hole in them. Their father was not a major part of their life and they always had that lingering question as to why. A question of why I still exists but it is not of why he left. Rather it is of why he was killed paired with who killed him.

The estrangement from the relatives down the street never really gets looked into. It is just a fact of the situation. Not sure if it was a no go for the Carrolls, but it would have helped in understanding this if it had been looked into. There’s a point where they it’s like they’re going to start discussing it and then nothing happens. It would’ve helped explain a few things without saying much at all to the viewer.

The story never gets salacious. They are respectful to the people involved in the subject matter. There’s no narrator to tell you what to feel. Rather the answers to the never heard interviewers communicate what they are going through and how they are feeling. This is the hook. The strength of the bonds of family are what keep you there. And you end the whole thing pretty certain who did it and why and for also feeling sorry for them. Not in a pitiful way but feeling that you just wish they hadn’t gone through what they are going through. 

The Secrets We Bury is an emotional documentary about a family wanting answers for the murder of their father that they can never get. Never salacious and never tawdry, the bizarre nature will keep you watching until the end.