sol **SPOILERS** True story of the notorious as well as severally dysfunctional Geck, the fictional name in the movie, family headed by the 800 pound gorilla in the room or the movie the Geck family matriarch Brenda Geck played by, who must have gained at least 100 pounds for the role, actress Kirstie Alley. It was Brenda's love of children that had her adopt almost a dozen of them in order to give them a home in her over-sized New Hampshire home with all the goodies that they can possibly have or need. The goodies were in fact stolen by the children at Mrs. Geck's insistence by having them shop lift the merchandise from local stores and shopping malls.It's when one of the Geck clan the diagnosed mentally retarded Marie Devereaux, Deanna Milligan, just had enough of Mrs. Geck both mantel and physical abuse that she went to the local county D.A Philip Rothman, Will Patton, for help! With D.A Rothman not believing Marie's accusations against Mrs. Beck, Rothman was in fact a good friend of her's, she went public on local TV to tell her story. This had the by now deranged Mrs. Beck throw a fit and almost have Marie killed by her slum buildings enforcer Leroy , Viv Leacock, who also did part time work for Mrs. Geck as an arsonist.Marie who by then had a child by her boyfriend Barry Crandell, Tygh Runyan, who's also an adopted member, like Marie, of the Geck family didn't want her child Jeremy, Brandon Baylis, to end up like she did. A mental misfit as well as trained, by Mrs Geck, shop lifter and arsonist! In fact the father of Marie may well be Mrs. Geck's filthy swine of a husband Kenneth, Kevin McNulty, who's been having occasional sex with her mom Nadine, Kathleen Wilhoite, for the last 20 or so years. It was Nadine who was kept by Mrs. Geck locked up in the basement all that time where she eventually lost her sense of reality that resulted her suffering from a sever case of Stockholm Syndrome. In fact Nadine was so brainwashed by Mrs. Geck that she actually thought that what she was doing to her her daughter and the other members of the Geck household was in their best interests!As the evidence started to mount against the Geck family's criminal operations D.A Rothman started to put the heat on her and her family of mentally unbalanced psychos that also included her # 1 son Joey, David Rihmond Peck, who together with strong-arm man Leroy did all the dirty work for her. Put into a safe house together with her mom and little boy Jeremy Marie was still harassed and threatened by Mrs. Geck, who was at the time behind bars awaiting trial, with her outside the family enforcer Leroy tracking her down and on one occasion torching her car.***SPOILERS*** In the end the Geck's, Brenda Kenneth and Joey, got all that was coming to them in long prison sentences and heavy, that amounted in over $300,00.00, fines when they were convicted of a slew of charges that also included unlawful imprisonment of Nadine Devereaux. All that thanks to Marie testifying against them in open court. Very disturbing but true movie about man's, or in Mrs. Geck's case woman's, inhumanity to man. Brenda Geck and her accomplices were able to get away with their crimes for so long because of the terror they instilled on their many victims. A terror so great that those victimized were far more afraid of them the Beck's in what they could do to them then in having faith in the power of the law that was there to protect them. There was also the fact that the Geck's were held is such high respect that no one not even the local D.A would ever believe them in the first place! It was Marie's great courage in not only going public but risking her life, in being murdered by one of Mrs. Geck's goons, that finally put the Geck's behind bars for good!

pattree48 Hi..I am from Rhode Island and watched the movie. I vaguely remember hearing about this when it was discovered.BUT what surprised me the most was....in 2001 I hired a contractor to build an addition for me. He seemed like a nice enough guy and price was reasonable, (I called 7 companies and only got 3 prices..seemed like no one wanted to work).I had no idea who Raymond Burt was....well I found out at the end of the movie when I saw him and his family on the clips of them in the court room. What a shock that was.It was hard to imagine what the hell his life must have been like with a mother like his. He was pleasant and friendly and I would never have guessed what his family life was like. I can only hope he did what he did because his mother made him and not because he truly wanted to.The completed job was OK...a couple of things were not to my liking but that was subcontractors faults and Ray made up for them.Don't know where he is now or if still in business..but I hope he's not with his mother.....she is one scary BITCH!!!!!!

savanna-2 Bring it on and Kirstie Alley does and then some. Doesn't hit a false note in Family Sins. From her sunny suburban mom persona too the outright brutal cruelty w. her family, she is the master manipulator.She is just bone chilling in this role. It was great to see her in top form and thought the supporting cast was stellar. Just check out the stepford children and the long suffering Marie and Nadine, not to mention the son-in-law unfortunate enough to marry into this mess.While Will Patton doesn't give the strongest of performances, his role as the prosecutor out to "get the Gecks," is solid.All in all a good film about a very tragic story.

vchimpanzee This was such a terrible story. If it hadn't been Kirstie Alley playing this despicably cruel character, I don't think I could have watched it.Kathleen Wilhoite did such a good job as a girl treated so harshly she apparently couldn't feel pain any more. She seemed almost happy with her life because she didn't know any better. That was just sad.I'm not sure which would have been worse: that these people were real, or that someone could have been sick enough to make up this story. The latter, unfortunately, was true. I wish it hadn't been. Still an entertaining presentation.