Dianne Mann *** SPOILERS AHEAD! * * * This is a lovely and sad film about postpartum depression and young parents pressed beyond endurance by factors outside their control. The negative reception of this film by critical viewers was made possible by the film's own misguided promotion as a supernatural horror tale when it is in fact a strong psychological drama with possible paranormal elements. The picture of a creepy old hand poised menacingly over a cradle on the DVD cover invites the wrong viewing audience who will, of course, be disappointed in the film based on their reasonable expectations.My sense is that this storyline began with one plot and someone during the development of the film decided to intertwine another plot that would boost DVD sales. What a mistake that was! The secondary plot of a reclusive old woman haunted by a childhood memory nearly killed this movie. But if you are able to watch the film without anticipating the arrival of a sinister murderous ghost, you will be rewarded by a very different story.I enjoyed this film more the second time I watched it, knowing that what actually happens at the end of the film explains the importance of everything up to that point. If you don't understand or anticipate the actual ending of the original plot without ideas about evil spirits filling your mind, yes, the film moves too slowly and goes nowhere. But if you are anticipate the actual ending, you will know that the film was paced perfectly! PLOT: Frank and Julie have lost their previous babies to miscarriage or stillbirth. Finally a baby boy, Sam, is born alive, but Julie is so scarred by her previous losses that she cannot bond with the surviving boy. She falls into a deep and disabling postpartum depression. Frank (played beautifully by the earnest Lukas Haas) wants to be part of a normal young family starting out fresh with their firstborn son. Perhaps in desperation to realize his dream, he brings his depressed wife and infant son to an isolated country home hoping that the relaxing environment will alleviate Julie's symptoms and allow her over time to bond with their baby.OK, enough warnings, here come the SPOILERS: The baby tragically dies (SIDS?) within the first few days of the family's arrival to their new country home. Frank is outside the house when Sam dies. When he returns indoors, he finds his dead son covered by a blanket. Carefully laid atop the blanket is a necklace, the gift he had just given Juli in appreciation of her new motherhood.It is at this point that Sam dives into a psychotic break with reality, beginning with his delusion that his son is still alive. Nearly everything that happens in the film after he discovers his dead son is either hallucination or psychotic delusion. He refuses to accept that Sam is dead. He also refuses to accept that Julie has taken her own life after discovering Sam's dead body in the cradle. He blocks out the fact that he discovered her dead body at the bottom of the waterfalls the night that Sam died.Frank exists in a dark nightmarish world where Sam lives, smiles and coos like any normal baby and Julie continues to struggle bravely with her postpartum depression. In Frank's mind, Julie at first refuses but later insists on caring for Sam. The seemingly paranormal events are probably creations of Frank's psychosis. The psychosis is mixed with actual dreams of how Sam dies.Finally, there may be a haunting in this film, but it is not the evil sister spirit. There is the possibility that Julie's ghost is real to the plot. In this reading of the film, Julie's ghost yearns for reconciliation with her dead infant, but Frank's unwillingness to accept the fact that Sam is dead somehow interferes with Julie's ability to care for Sam in a ghostly afterworld.Haas's portrayal of Frank's sweetness, confusion and great love for his family are what carry this film and make it well worth watching twice. The unnecessary melodrama involving the old woman and her dead sister keep trying to pull the film under. If only director Brown had not made the old woman's character so frightening, strange and hysterical, The Cradle could have been a really good movie, possibly an 8. All we really needed from this character is a little history of her losses. Her key role in the plot is being the person who forces Frank to realize that his baby has been dead for several days. Brown didn't need to use the old woman to create a supernatural horror plot to wrap around the film's neck to strangle it before it could be born.I hope someday Brown edits this film so that it can emerge as the endearing sad story that makes it memorable.

sol1218 ***SPOILERS*** Horror story in the real sense of the word in that it's very real among many child bearing women who are too afraid of having children especially their very first. The movie has to do with this young couple Frank and Julie, Lukas Hass & Emily Hampshire, who move out to the country to raise their newborn son Sam, Elisa Madeline Marks.We see right away that Julie is suffering from a severe case of postpartum depression in that she can't as much touch much less take care of her baby Sam. It's up to Frank to do all the parenting for the couples child that in effect is slowly taking a toll on his psychical and mantel health. It's one evening when Frank's finds Julie gone with Sam in his crib not breathing that he completely flips out and in desperation, by pounding on Sam's chest, bring the what looked like dead infant back to life. Later finding Julie aimlessly wandering around in the woods Frank soon realizes that she's completely unable to take care of Sam and tries to get his next door neighbor Helen (Amada Smith), the only person within miles from where he and Julie live, to babysit for their infant boy.As it turns out Helen is even more unstable then Julie is in her having seen her baby sister,who was thought to have been born stillborn, buried alive by her father, Trevor Bain when she was a little girl. It's then that Frank, an the audience, begin to notice that something is seriously wrong not only with Julie and Helen but himself as well. Frank seems to be going in and out of consciousness and reality in regards to both his son Sam and wife Julie.Things happen that just can't be explained, with Julie and Sam, and in become apparent, at least to Frank, that some supernatural force is in control of events. Helen isn't any help either in her rambling about her having the touch of death at anything that he lays her hands on and is afraid if she even touch's Sam, by being his babysitter, he'll end up dead as well.***SPOILER ALERT*** The movie then goes fast backwards to the point where Frank found Sam not breathing and Julie gone and then things suddenly start to crystallize. Like in the film "The Sixth Sense" we and Frank start to see the obvious clues that were overlooked and the shocking conclusion of those suppressed events are far more horrific then those conjured up by a now mentally unbalanced Frank!"The Cradle" is the kind of film you have to watch at last twice to really understand what its both subconsciously and skillfully trying to tell you. Made on a shoestring budget the movie doesn't have the special effects needed to jump start and keep shocking its audience in order to keep the viewer interested, and awake, in watching it. But if you take the time to really watch and understand what its massage or story is really all about you'll be greatly,if not shockingly, rewarded in your efforts.

MelodySoul This movie was made on a low budget so I had low expectations but I was pleasantly surprised. It was very suspenseful and creepy without requiring special effects or gore. To everyone that is so confused over what happened, did you watch the ending? It explains it quite clearly. The only part that I found confusing was adding in the Helen story since it really had nothing to do with the outcome but I guess that was just to get your imagination going on another course, that part could have been done a little better. Regardless of it I still figured out the ending part way through. I thought that overall it was refreshingly different and I didn't find it slow moving at all, I enjoyed the suspenseful build up. The story was a little sloppy but overall enjoyable. I definitely felt influence from The Shining in it too which is one of my all time favorite movies.

mnsabogal With this movie I was expecting one of those (most) badly made horror movies, where u just scream but there's else to it! However this movie really surprised me in a good way, the actor aren't very well known guess that added to not doing so well at the box office,but it's a very good movie. It is carefully done in a way u never expect what the outcome is! To me it resembles "The Others" that movie with Nicole Kidman...yes a tweak here and there would have made it really great, but in spite of that I would say it was pretty darn good, and Im not at all a fan of horror movies, I was just watching it with a friend out t of boredom...