The Cradle (2007) Reviews

• Okay movie

  K-burg2007-09-10

  First off, I really didn't have the trouble understanding this movie that other reviewers seemed to have. Everyone's got films that they just don't get, so I'll assume that's the case here. The story's about a man who loses his mind out of stress and grief. I'd feel sorry for him, but he's too much of an idiot. Here's a tip, fellas. If your wife has severe post-partum depression, take her to a hospital. Do not, under any circumstances, move her to a dreary and isolated house in the middle of hazardous woods with a nutcase for a neighbor. (For the reviewer who insisted that this isn't how women with post-partum depression act, I'm sorry, but you're wrong. I'm a physician who has worked with a wide variety of psychiatric patients, and the film portrays classic post-partum depression. There's a spectrum of post-partum mood disorders, and what you're describing sounds more like the very common post-partum blues.) Also, do not repeatedly leave her alone with the baby for hours when she has demonstrated that she cannot care for him. If a doctor tells you that everything will happen naturally in time, that moving to the middle of nowhere is okay, and that your wife apparently has no need of medications, get a new doctor. When the tragically inevitable happens, the main character can't cope. Seeking the advice of a crazy neighbor lady, presumably for lack of anyone sane nearby, he discovers a quite chilling and interesting ghost story. Sadly, the movie is not about the ghost story. Eventually he resolves the parallel realities in his head and we can assume he does something akin to moving on with life. The ending implies that maybe if he hadn't moved his family to this particular cursed and haunted land, the outcome would have been different, but this is the only nod we get towards the side plot being involved in the main story at all. Overall, the filmmakers are lying to us, and unlike in a decent twist-ending movie like Sixth Sense, they had to introduce unnecessary action, characters, and plot points in order to fool the audience. The movie does not tie itself together well and leaves the viewer unsatisfied in a bad way. The concept and the atmosphere were good, but the film did not live up to its potential because the filmmakers decided that a twist ending was more important than telling a good story.

• Puts the 'lull' in Lullabye!

  Special-K992007-08-06

  This is a terribly S-L-O-W film, two thirds of the way in and very little had happened. There's a nice air of mystery about the film, it's terribly dark and has the usual scary jumps which all add to the overall effect but ultimately the story just seemed to drag, it was so mind numbingly slow. The acting was unremarkable and the dialogue was extremely quiet. No need for a cradle, Lukas Haas' dreadfully monotone voice was enough to send me to sleep. I can't recall the number of times in this film he called out his wife's name "Julie!". (I'd answer this question myself but that would mean watching the film over again and once was enough). An extremely slow film that lacked any thrill whatsoever. Cradles may rock - alas, this movie doesn't!!

• The Cradle: Really, really, really bad

  Platypuschow2018-02-10

  I saw a review, a 1/10 review with the tagline "I had to stop watching". Now I hate that crap, I'm a firm believer of if you don't watch a movie all the way through then you have no right to judge it. I stand by that, but often I feel the desire to walk away. This is such a film, but I did finish it. It tells the story of a young couple and their newborn baby moving into a new home that's heavily isolated. The pair have to contend with a possible supernatural force and her suffering from postnatal depression. Starring Lukas Haas this is a mercilessly boring movie which shouldn't be considered a horror but more of a thriller, that isn't exactly thrilling. Excessively dark, mundane beyond belief and a terrible plot all come together to make The Cradle. The Good: Nope The Bad: SO boring Weirdly dark all the time Terrible plot Things I Learnt From This Movie: The creators may well have seen Evil Dead

• Barely constitutes a horror film

  slayrrr6662008-08-24

  "The Cradle" is one of the hardest films ever to call a horror film. **SPOILERS** Moving into a new house, newlyweds Frank, (Lukas Haas) and his wife Julie Brooksfield, (Emily Hampshire) fix it up for their baby, only for their marital issues to get in the way. Even though none of the neighbors offer up any help, they decide to deal with it on their own. The more they try to help each other deal with the baby, the more they have problems dealing with it, and once he starts to complain that something is after their child, she blames it on him and ignores it. Getting help from Helen, (Amanda Smith) who tells him that there's the ghost of the previous resident who now is haunting the estate, and they decide to fight back and stop the ghost from destroying the family. The Good News: There is hardly anything in this one worthwhile. The main plot-line about the baby being in jeopardy does have some solid credence to it, as it's a pretty frightening idea that is really well-played and actually works. From the motions on the hidden camera to the dreams and hallucinations and the constant agonizing over what's happening, there's a lot to this and it's one of the best things about the film. That's also boosted by one of the only worthwhile scenes in the film, where supernatural forces are shown moving the baby across the table with only the garments on the table beside it indicating the move. It's creepy, disturbing and actually well-done, which indicates that something weird is happening and after the child, scoring well with several points. These, though, are all that make this one interesting. The Bad News: There's not a whole lot to this one, since there's really big, damaging flaws to this one. The main one is that this one is just ungodly boring. Nothing at all happens in here except for a several brief moments, but the rest of the film, literally nothing happens. The majority of time is spent with the guy and the baby, not exactly thrilling beyond the one moment where something actually happens, but that's about it. There's a ton of talk about something, but it's done in such a manner that it's nothing that matters or not. It doesn't matter what happens, whether or not that the film decides to make them seem so important, yet they're the main focus of the story for the first fifty minutes of it's running time, and that is something that is a major mistake. The lack of action also makes the later segments seem that much more dull, as running around screaming at anything that moves doesn't do much to inspire fear. That may well be the whole problem with the film, nothing in here actually does anything to inspire fear. That's the major, overall problem with this one, that no one outside of parents will find this one frightening, scary or even entertaining. It's dull, lifeless and uses tactics that will only get a jolt from those in that situation, and not much of anything else in here will work in here. These here are the film's overall flaws. The Final Verdict: With a ton of dullness, nothing really much interesting happening and a selected audience, this one is pretty much doomed to fail. Really only those who will find the premise intriguing or scary should give this one a watch, otherwise skip this one and give others a shot. Rated R: Mild Violence, Language and children in danger

• My Interpretation

  elissarh2008-07-18

  O.k., so here is what I think happened: He and his wife did have three miscarriages before they had this fourth baby. One night, the baby was running a fever but the roads were closed or bad due to weather and he promised his wife that as soon as the roads opened again, they would take the baby to the hospital, but for now they would have to take care of the baby themselves. Now - here is where I am not sure what happened, so I have come up with two possible scenarios: scenario 1: the baby died from his sickness before they could get him to the hospital; the wife killed herself due to the grief (jumped into the river or whatever); the husband went insane from his grief and blamed himself for the baby's death. He went delusional and held on to the baby's corpse and imagined his wife's presence. He also imagined the wife's ghost because his subconscious was telling him that she wanted the baby with her in heaven or in death or something like that - i.e. his subconscious knew they were both dead and the wife's ghost was his delusional manifestation of that. He had to finally come out of his delusion when he gave the old woman the baby because the old woman could see the baby was dead and made him face it. The end of the movie is him realizing all of this and remembering what really happened. scenario 2: basically the same as scenario 1 except for how the baby and wife died - so, instead of the baby dying of the illness and the wife from suicide, they instead decided to go to the hospital despite the weather because they were so ultra-sensitive about their baby's health because they had already lost three as stillbirths. Their car veered off the road because of the bad weather and into the river and the baby and wife were killed; as in the first scenario, the husband became crazed and delusional, carried the baby back home and pretended it didn't happen. As for the old woman and her baby sister being buried alive, I have no idea what that has to do with the story other than: 1) to give an opening to the discussion about the stillborn issue and bring that story-line forward and (2) to further the ghost story-line to throw us off the real story. Anybody have any thoughts on my interpretations?