Baby Blues

I First saw Cradle Will Fall a couple of weeks ago and i found it to be quite a disturbing but very good film. The mother suffers a psychotic breakdown due to postpartum depression and the stress of family life which makes her want to kill her children 10,7,4, and 3 months. Her husband has gone away. Now Jimmy,the eldest son has to help the family survive. Jimmy must try to protect his brothers and sister. He has to fight off his mother to stop her from hurting the rest of the children. I thought this was a very strong film at times with some disturbing seances which could scare viewers. Apart from this i thought it was a very good horror movie.

I never noticed this flick not even by it's other name Baby Blues but a friend in the UK told me that it was worth watching. Well, in fact it was. So called based on true events this flick surely isn't for the weak at heart. Not that it is gory or that bloody but it concerns children. In the seventies it was common to shoot children or give them a good beating in films. Today's standards don't allow that kind of cinema anymore. But still some directors aren't afraid to show a child being slaughtered. Lars Jacobson, the director did a good job, this being his first effort. The way he used some shots were nicely done. It all involves a woman who has to take care of her children. Her husband is always on the road so she has to do it in fact on her own, but she can't take it. Slowly she turns into hatred towards her offspring. One evening at dinner she goes bonkers and things go heavenly wrong. What a great performance from Colleen Porch (Transformers, Starship Troopers 2) but also from the young ones. A flick overlooks from the geeks but worth a look.

I picked this up cheap on DVD, under the title Cradle Will Fall, yet the credits on the movie read Baby Blues. Why do they do that?? Just keep it the same! As with so many of these budget purchases I go in with low expectations, however Baby Blues proved to be fairly decent. Inspired by true events, a mother of four young kids suffers with postpartum and while the father is away in his truck she flips and embarks on a bloody killing spree. In true slasher movie style. It's very disturbing and graphic, the sight of a mother butchering her children is not easy to stomach. The rural location adds to the helplessness of the children's situation, there's a creepy scarecrow and corn fields (a nod to Children of the Corn?). Acting is decent, in particular Ridge Canipe as 10 year old Jimmy. I do pass on many of my DVDs after I've watched them but I may just hang on to this one and revisit it again in the future.

Like many horror fans, I spend a lot of time wading through the proverbial garbage that saturates the genre, in search of those hidden gems. BABY BLUES is just such a find. Beautiful cinematography, a tight script, and some really solid performances make for a terrifying journey into a child's worst nightmare. My biggest question is, why has it taken me so long to find this flick? It seems to have completely slipped under the radar. This film is 10 times better the most theatrically released horror films. If you are a horror fan, or just a fan of great independent cinema, I strongly recommend you check this out!

Surprisely a great movie. I never expect good movie that I find in a 4 packs but I can't believe how good this was. It's the quintessential mother vs. son horror. This movie reminded me a lot of AmityVille Horror in a sense. A little boy fights to survive and protect his siblings when his mother has a psychotic break.