User:EmperorMarcus/Cry Baby Lane

Cry Baby Lane
Directed by	Peter Lauer
Written by	Peter Laur Robert Mittenthal
Produced by	Albie Hecht Jerry Kupfer
Starring	Jase Blankfort Trey Rogers Frank Langella
Music by	Andrew Barrett
Production company	Nickelodeon
Release date	October 28, 2000 (2000-10-28)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	Unknown

Cry Baby Lane is a very obscure, made for TV movie which premiered on Nickelodeon on the night of October 28, 2000. It has since been disowned by the network and has never reaired. Copies of the film are virtually nonexistent and as of 2011, it is unclear if it will ever be shown again.

Plot

Andrew (Jase Blankfort) and his older brother Carl (Trey Rogers) enjoy listening to ghost stories that the local undertaker (Frank Langella) tells them. One night he tells the tale of a local farmer whose wife gave birth to Siamese twins, one being good natured while the other was clearly evil. The farmer, ashamed of them, kept the twins locked in their room. Eventually the twins got sick and died together, so the farmer sawed them in half and buried the good twin in a cemetery and the bad twin in a shallow grave near the house. Later, Carl and his friends decide to hold a seance in the cemetery where the good twin is buried, but they unintentionally awaken the bad twin instead. Gradually, he possesses nearly everyone in town and it is up to young Andrew to stop him.

Controversy

The film was intended to be only mildly scary and suitable for children, similar to Nickelodeon's own Are You Afraid of the Dark series. However, many parents allegedly found it to be too graphic and disturbing for their children, and complained to Nick the next day. As a result, Nickelodeon banned Cry Baby Lane from reairing and never released it on video. Supposedly, Nickelodeon has even gone so far as to publicly deny the movie's existence. Despite all of this, the film retains a small, but dedicated fanbase composed of nostalgic teenagers who vaguely remember seeing the movie as children. A fictitious account on the making of the movie has since parodied its status as a banned film and helped bring attention to it.

Availability

Because Nickelodeon has never released it to the public, Cry Baby Lane is officially unavailable and due to the bad publicity it created for them, it's doubtful that they will release it in the future, much less air it on TV again. It seems that the only hope for a release at this point would be if anyone who had seen its only screening had the foresight to record it, and keep the tape for 11 years. Needless to say, this is highly improbable. Despite the efforts of the fans, all attempts to find and upload a copy of the film have thus far been futile. If there are any recorded copies, they have managed to stay off of the internet, save for one 3 minute clip, inexplicably posted on youtube, and three different compositions from the soundtrack on the composer's own website. Whether Nickelodeon has kept any copies of the movie themselves is not clear, and due to their unfavorable stance on the movie, it's very unlikely. All of this has lead many to wonder if Cry Baby Lane is now in fact a lost film. Information on the movie is rare, causing some people to question its existence entirely. Despite being made fairly recently, it has managed to slip into almost total obscurity.

External links

• list of banned films
• list of lost films
• List of films broadcast by Nickelodeon
• Cry Baby Lane at IMDb