The Mother

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.

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.

A long haul trucker hits the road just as his wife is in the throes of a psychotic break due to postpartum depression. Now left alone with their mother, the oldest son must attempt to protect his three siblings and escape their isolated farmhouse.

What a discovery! It's hard to believe that I hadn't heard of Baby Blues before renting it on a whim last October. This is a disturbing film with some intense imagery. The first 30 minutes are especially rattling, as we are treated to an all too realistic portrait of a mental breakdown. One particularly effective scene sees the mother sitting in a daze as she imagines heinous sounds emanating from the baby monitor in place of her baby's actual crying. The film eventually turns more towards a slasher type scenario, only with kids as the victims instead of the typical teenagers. Not to say that it gets less disturbing, it actually doesn't. The kills get under your skin, especially the first one we're witness to involving the sharp point of a mirror.

Colleen Porch is fantastic as the mother, never taking things over the top, something that easily could have happened. The kids are good too, all perfectly believable as normal children in a terrible situation that they don't fully understand. There's a scene where the mother attempts to drown her daughter in the bathtub, the whole thing made more effective by the reaction of the girl's brother in the background, a reaction that rang very true to me.

This isn't a film for everyone. It is often hard to watch due to the unnerving nature of what unfolds on the screen. For others like myself who prefer to feel something when watching a horror film, this is one that you won't want to miss. It's exceptionally well done.

The team that created this movie did an amazing job! This was a jarring thriller, from beginning to end. It is one of those rare movies that horror lovers like me wait for but so rarely find. Be warned though. The violence in this movie become extremely graphic at times. I was truly surprised that the director had the guts to take it as far as he did.

The story begins simply enough. The movie opens by introducing us to a young family no different than many in the heartland of middle America. The hard-working father is a long-haul trucker whose job takes him away from his family for longer stretches of time than he'd like. He and his wife have four children, the youngest only a few months old. By all accounts it seems to be a loving family. The misfortune develops as the mother's mental stability begins to break down after the birth of her last child. She begins experiencing auditory and visible hallucinations just as her husband is preparing to leave for another road trip. He's a loving father, but distracted by the demands of caring for a growing family. The oldest son, who is about twelve, tries to tell his father that the mother is not well. But the dad is too worn out to absorb the reality of his wife's impending mental breakdown.

If you can't get past the horrifying concept of a mother turning against her family, this is not the movie for you. But if you want to suspend reality for a while and jump on a terror-filled ride to hell, you've found what you are looking for!

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.