CryBaby Lane (2000 TV Movie) User Reviews

Too scary? Not quite.

[LanceBrave · 6/10 · 7 November 2013]

"Cry Baby Lane" originally aired on Nickelodeon in 2000. Odds are the movie would have been forgotten by all but the most dedicated nineties nostalgist if something funny hadn't happened. It was never aired again. Rumor has it, the film was pulled from rotation because parents complained it was "too scary." "Cry Baby Lane" became sought-after by Nick devotees. The widely unseen film even spawned a (badly written) creepypasta. Finally, in 2011, a copy emerged and got plastered all over the internet, prompting Nickelodeon to reair it for the first time in ten years. Because I work at my own pace, I'm just now getting around to watching it.

Too scary? Not quite. As far as content goes, "Cry Baby Lane" is on par with an episode of "Are You Afraid of the Dark?" Like that fondly remembered show, "Cry Baby Lane" has an impressively creepy opening. Frank Langella recalls an urban legend about conjoined brothers kept in captivity by their father. As with most fictional twins, one is good and other is evil. When the boys die, the father separates the children, burying the good child in the public cemetery and the evil one in an isolated grave along the titular road. The story, darkly intoned, is played over images of black-and-white graveyards, abandoned homes, torn up stuffed animals, and bloody saws. This is doubtlessly the spookiest thing about "Cry Baby Lane." The rest plays out more typically. After hearing about the legend from the friendly mortician, ten-year old Andrew and his older, wrestling-obsessed, borderline abusive brother decide to perform a prank séance for the girls they like. A fake séance works as well as a real one, resurrecting the spirit of the evil twin. The ghost wreaks havoc on the small town, possessing most of the residents. This is a kid's movie so the evil manifest as petty prankery. Graffiti and mailbox tag are annoying but not exactly evil. The most malevolent actions are a burning boat and potentially deadly, if non-lethal, encounters with a bull and a harvester. Also, because this is a kid's movie, the story is primarily concerned with Andrew proving his courage to his bully brother.

The blatant attempts at horror fall flat. An encounter with a possessed cop doesn't pay off. The final, underground confrontation with the evil twin is hopelessly lame. "Cry Baby Lane" is probably more valuable as comedy. The apathetic father provides a few laughs, as does the overprotective mom and lazy gravedigger. The older brother's attempt to retell the legend while the girls interrupt him got a chuckle out of me. Other comic relief is less amusing, like the belligerent "Lord of the Rings"-obsessed kid or a giant girl-scout. The movie doesn't address a young boy spending so much time with a strange old man, even when the kid ends up in his underwear. I guess that's to be expected. Overall, the cult of "Cry Baby Lane" is mostly undeserved, even if that opening is still aces.

A difficult movie to review for how scattered its tone is.

[Blazehgehg · 4/10 · 29 September 2020]

This is a hard movie to review, because the tone is really all over the place.

As the story goes, Cry Baby Lane was so scary that Nickelodeon only ever aired it one time, after which it was locked away in a vault forever -- becoming something of an urban legend. That is until almost 11 years later, when someone on Reddit discovered a high-quality master copy of the movie, and with renewed buzz, Nickelodeon dusted it back off and began airing it again.

The truth of the matter is... yeah, actually, there are a few scenes in Cry Baby Lane that are probably too dark for a made-for-TV movie aired on The Spongebob Channel. Whether or not it's actually "scary" is up for debate I guess, because there aren't really monsters or anything approaching legitimate horror or violence. It's a little bit more suggestively haunting than it is terrifying. But even compared to shows like Nickelodeon's own Are You Afraid of the Dark, Cry Baby Lane has a couple of moments that were beyond most of what was done on the channel at the time.

Honestly, I would not be surprised if it gave some kids lasting nightmares. It's kind of got that "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" vibe to it, where the whole world slowly turns against the increasingly isolated protagonist. Even for adults, that can be spooky, and Cry Baby Lane definitely uses this to push things in some strange directions. I'm watching this for the first time at 37 years old, and there are parts of it that are actually a little unsettling even to me.

According to the movie's history, Cry Baby Lane was originally written as a big-budget theatrical release, but after a series of box-office bombs, Nickelodeon got cold feet and downgraded it to a much cheaper TV movie. That might explain Cry Baby Lane's darker tones, but I think the creators also probably realized their movie was a little too intense for a channel that aired Rugrats and iCarly.

As a direct result, between scarier scenes, Cry Baby Lane tries to lighten the mood with cheap, bizarre, kid-friendly humor. Fart jokes, Lord of the Rings references (years before Peter Jackson) and cracks about 2000's-era pro wrestling desperately seek to cut the tension multiple times throughout the movie.

This is what dates Cry Baby Lane most, and really drags it down overall. The humor is corny at best, and obnoxious at worst -- especially the older brother, Carl, who constantly espouses an old fashioned ideal of masculinity by constantly bullying his younger brother for "acting like a girl." It's not exactly progressive by modern standards, and usually comes off more as cringeworthy than anything. There's never a point to Carl's actions, he just gets a free pass to treat his younger brother like scum. It's not fun to watch, and it never really pays off in a way that feels earned.

There's a lot of potential in Cry Baby Lane, and some genuinely spooky ideas. But it kind of ends up being one of those things that struggles to find a balance for its audience. Sometimes it's too silly for older teenagers, and other times, too scary for younger kids. And for the newer generation only familiar with its urban legend, I don't expect a lot of its pop-culture humor will land very well. That leaves a pretty narrow window of appeal.

I don't want to say that it's bad, because if you come at it from a certain mindset and consider the era it was made in, I think you'll still get something out of it. But it's sort of hard to recommend, otherwise.

Inept in every way you can imagine.

[eddie052010 · 3/10 · 14 February 2015]

When a film gains a certain reputation, it makes many curious to see it, to find out whether it lives up to the hype or not. This is especially true of previously banned or lost films, as being allowed to see them for the first time makes you interested whether the fuss surrounding it is truly worth it or rather a means to an end. The latter can definitely be applied to this film, as it's inept in every way possible, with its awful storytelling, characterization and a lack of truly anything scary.

Ironically, its supposed reputation of being too scary was what originally got it lost/banned by Nickelodeon in the first place. Initially, this TV movie was meant to be a children's horror movie, in similar vein to other 90's children's horror shows like Goosebumps or Nickelodeon's own Are You Afraid Of The Dark? However, the film became controversial when many parents complained that the film's content was too scary for children, and because of this, Nickelodeon never re-released it again. No re-airing, no VHS/DVD release, nothing. Because of this, many became curious to see the film again, and many sought after it, even leading to an awful creepypasta story being written about it. It took 11 years for the film to resurface, after Nickelodeon reaired it after it was leaked online.

But sadly, that backstory is far more interesting than the film itself. Firstly, the story (whereby two brothers resurrect an evil twin who possesses people and causes chaos in their town) is quite weak. Despite a strong and quite spooky opening, the story is very poorly written, with plot holes (e.g. why does no-one question a semi-naked child running through the streets? why does someone try to run over a possessed dog despite it being on top of someone?) and how it rips off many other films for its story, whether it be Evil Dead (the twin being resurrected by a tape recording), Village of the Damned (the possessed having bright blue eyes) or Invasion of the Body Snatchers (some of the possessed change personality into a duller version of themselves). It's a shame, as for every original idea the film has (i.e. the spirit being released through a root growing out of the grave), it steals 2 or 3 from somewhere else, with little subtly.

Another problem is that not many of the characters are likable. The main character is alright, if nothing special, but his arrogant, borderline abusive brother is absolutely hateful, and you'll want him to die as soon as possible. His parents are awful too, the mother being too overprotective, the father being too liberal and neither of them caring about their children much including never checking on them when they're in their room for a few hours at the least. The supporting cast aren't great either, and mainly consist of stereotypes that you'll bore of quickly. Whether this would be the attitude-filled girls that the main characters have a crush on, the young Lord of the Rings nerd or an elder character who is so prepared to prove himself to be tough but turns out to be even more frightened than his younger companion. The only character you'll gain any sympathy for is Frank Langella's undertaker. He gets the movie's best lines (his "run" joke is genuinely funny), is the warmest character & Langella plays it very well, becoming the best thing in this by a country mile.

It doesn't help that for something like this, the film isn't scary at all. I assume that those who complained were a fascist Mary Whitehouse/James Ferman type group, as despite the dark backstory of the evil twin (having been kept hidden away all his life for being a Siamese twin and being sawed off and buried after death), there is nothing scary in this film. This is mainly due to how lame the twin is. Firstly, much of his attack consists of knocking over letter boxes and throwing fizzy drink bottles at cars, which while a nuisance seem more suited to Dennis the Menace than a scary villain like this, and his attacks against the main characters (i.e. a bull attack and a combine harvester) while threatening, aren't particularly scary, or worse than anything seen in an Indiana Jones movie. It also doesn't help that when he is encountered at the film's end, it's an anticlimax, as his character's OTT acting seems more fitting if he was in the 1980 Flash Gordon film and his behavior is more odd than spine chilling, as he just eats worms all day, and possesses people through said worms. The content is no worse than the aforementioned 90's children's horror shows or the 80's children's horror films like Gremlins or The Goonies, for instance. Quite frankly, the worst this movie ever gets in terms of content is when a kid says that they would like to raise Princess Diana from the dead, which feels slightly tasteless (I'm a British viewer after all) and out of place with the rest of the film.

It's a shame, because this movie does have a lot going for it. The film is still very well-made for a TV movie, the opening is very spooky and gets you interested in the story, the music by Andrew Barrett (no relation to Syd, I can assure you) is quite good (despite occasional out of place metal music here and there), the acting from the cast is top-notch for the most part, some of the ideas are quite clever, and Frank Langella is the standout in this film, and his bits of the film are usually the best. However, despite these standout elements, they don't form to create a whole, and the movie is very problematic otherwise, and is mostly inept because of it. Despite its controversy, it isn't a good film, and the fact that Nickelodeon buried it for this long tells you all you need to know. Avoid.

Meh

[10086cn · 3/10 · 6 May 2021]

It's not that good. I don't really quite understand what the huge deal is with this film, but maybe it's just not my thing. I was sure as hell bored out while watching Cry Baby Lane, to the point of which I almost fell asleep while watching it!

If you're a kid who loves Are You Afraid of the Dark? and Goosebumps, it's a pretty decent film.

[dudeizawsom · 8/10 · 22 February 2017]

To me, this movie wasn't all that bad for Nickelodeon's standards. It's like a longer version of a AYAotD episode, and for young children, it's fairly spooky (but not downright nightmare inducing). If you can't handle a spider crawling out of a girl's mouth, glowing yellow worms, a boy who eats one of the said worms, everybody in the city becoming possessed and having full on white eyes, and a story about Siamese twins being sawed in half as one was evil and the other was nice, you shouldn't watch it. If you're a kid who doesn't really care much about how well the actors acted, and how well the storyline and effects are for a 2000 low-budget movie, this movie is great for entertaining yourself with a decent movie for Nickelodeon's standards on a Halloween night or any night in which you wanna have a little spookiness before you go to bed. If you are a typical person wanting to see this movie after it never showed up on Nick's schedule since 2000, you should enjoy it if you're not too harsh. If you're a pretty harsh critic on a made-for-TV Nick movie (which could've been made into an actual movie for theaters with a much better budget and production value and possibly make it a better film but a forgotten one at the least), you might not enjoy everything, but it's good for a night of kicking back and seeing what this now infamous movie has to offer. I recommend it if you're pretty young. I still recommend it if you are looking to see this controversial cult followed flick. I know I enjoyed it. Then again, I also enjoyed Good Burger countless times. :/