The secrecy with which the family operated proved a stumbling block for investigators, just as it seems to for the filmmakers – and, although there are stories here of the kindness and generosity of the younger members of the family, the senior ones remain opaque and, in some cases, barely mentioned. There are interviews with friends and family, as well as police and pathologists, psychologists, journalists and, for some reason, a hypnotherapist. It’s certainly gut-wrenching and bewildering to see that footage juxtaposed with the images of the same people hanging from the ceiling, still and lifeless. They seem, from the outside, like a normal happy family, enthusiastically dancing in celebration. Home video footage is shown of the engagement party of 33-year-old Priyanka (another of Narayani Devi’s grandchildren who died with the rest of her household), which was held just a fortnight previously. Throughout the series, there is repetition, but it’s mainly evident in the first episode. While the two-minute video taken of the bodies is never shown in its entirety, disturbing snippets are screened, of feet dragging on the ground and hands tied behind backs, before the family were cut down and taken to the mortuary. The first episode deals with the discovery of the bodies and the initial shock of everyone investigating. Although director Leena Yadav initially sets the story up as a mystery, it’s “solved” by the second episode, so that the whodunnit element becomes both redundant and somewhat distasteful.
#HOUSE OF SECRETS RATING SERIES#
Sadly, this three-part series – which is, strangely, simultaneously too short and too long – fails to answer them. Was this mass suicide, murder or a family annihilation? Although baffled at first, police soon found diaries in the house that would shed some light on the fate of the family. A macabre video of the family strung up had been taken before the police arrived and was doing the rounds on social media. Very quickly, word spread throughout the district, as locals and the media swarmed the neighbourhood. Three generations – from Narayani Devi down to her two 15-year-old grandsons – were wiped out overnight. An eleventh body – that of the grandmother, 80-year-old Narayani Devi – was found dead in her bedroom, slumped by the foot of her bed. They had been tethered by colourful scarves, with their hands and feet bound, tape covering their eyes and mouths, and cotton wool stuffed in their ears. Ten members of a popular local family were found hanging from an overhead grille in their own home. On July 1st 2018, the neighbourhood of Burari in northern Delhi woke up to a horrifying discovery. House of Secrets turns its eye on a case that gripped India just a few years ago.
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