Crybaby Lane

A missing Nickelodeon movie.

Director: Peter Lauer
Writers: Peter Lauer
                Bob (Robert) Mitternthal

I found out about this from Gamer From Mars' video so if you want some background to how this is a "missing" Nickelodeon film go watch his video, just gonna drop a link here --- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIBXzOGo0Vwhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIBXzOGo0Vw ---

Onto the film.

It was good...For a Nickelodeon film at least, there's the obvious naff child acting and some of it didn't make sense, yet at the same time, I see why it was originally pulled from circulation. It's very similar to a Stephen King mini-series. What do I mean by that? Well, while I was making notes I realised that at certain points I was writing things such as "Kujo" "Children of the corn" "Tommyknockers" and a couple others, once I realised, I understood why it could have been taken down.

Might be wondering why a King-Esque children's horror, made for tv movie was even green lit? No? Well, you're reading my blog so....either suffer through it or read a different post. I need to calm down, wow. Anyway, I suppose that that's what parents were thinking if they saw the similarities, however, it's not too scary that it would leave them with damaging, permanent, emotional scars or trauma. The story outline would suggest otherwise, I mean, would you want to show your kid a film about two boys who love chatting with the local mortician and hearing his ghost stories. The boys then decide to hold a séance in the cemetery, conveniently at the grave in the ghost story (the boys chose it randomly considering they don't think the story was real but...it's a story for kids, of course, it's gonna be convenient) and in doing so, they raise a dangerous spirit from the grave and a fair amount of attempted murder goes down.

I don't want to talk too much about what actually goes on in this because it's pretty standard and nothing...overly stands out in it. I mean there's a plot line where a 9-year-old wants his 12-year-old friend to marry his mother, that's kinda funny. Though the kid treats his friend so horribly over it, the joke kind of loses all its comedy and you just feel bad for this kid. I genuinely don't remember the names of the kids in this and for some reason, I can't get onto IMDb, dunno if the site's down or it's my internet but whatever, when it works I'll whack an edit in and then we're good. The main boys older brother in this is also a genuinely abusive guy, like...he could grow up to beat his wife. He is also in the 15-17 age bracket and shares a bunk bed with his 12-year-old brother so...you know he gets the shit ripped out of him in school, no guy is gonna let his friend share a bunk bed with his pre-teen brother without giving him shit for it. I mean, maybe they wouldn't if the family were financially troubled but by the looks of it, they're doing pretty well. The younger brothers friend also plays Lord Of The Rings with a Lightsaber. Let the fandoms collide I guess.

The writing in this is golden, for example, there's a conversation that the younger brother has with his mother about being smothering and overprotective and at one point he just screams at her Quote: "I wanna live!" To which the mother screams back Quote: "Then eat!" And I swear I had to pause the film because I was in such disbelief that this was such a funny scene in a kid's made for tv film. I had to take a moment. Side note, don't come at me saying "it wasn't that funny, shut up" because comedy is subjective and we all find different things funny. Other golden nuggets of dialogue include Quote: "Why am I so afraid of everything?" and Quote: "What have I told you about breathing my air?" plus Quote: "Doctors will kill you". All of these things out of context seem...fairly general but that means you gotta watch the film to understand. What makes these lines good is mostly the delivery like I have a bias favouring the "doctors will kill you" sentiment but that's a story for...never probably.

This is a decent film overall like I said there's nothing in it to traumatise your kids so I hope that people can start watching this film and maybe get it shown around Halloween again. Kid's are a lot more durable than parents give them credit for. Like a supposed Don Bluth quote says, you can show kids anything as long as there's a happy ending and personally, I think there is a certain degree of truth to that. As long as you go in with a tone that says "we're gonna show you some freaky shit, you can leave whenever you like but this is your disclaimer". Which this film does, it starts with a creepy tone leading into the scares that are put in later. If this even remotely sounds interesting then check it out, it's on Youtube and I'll leave a link.

Anyway, hope you have a good night and I'm sorry for how this was written. I get that it seems a little vague but that was my goal, I kept it vague to hopefully get you interested enough in watching the film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrBjM8mTib4

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested in how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then support its creators by...building a big enough following behind it and therefore giving it the attention it deserves.