It was 13 years ago and the internet was just getting used to using social media. Creepypastas were in their infant stage and movies weren’t as readily available as they are today. YouTube was only five years old and it hadn’t hit its stride.
This was the golden age of internet urban legends and virtual campfire stories that no one could prove because there weren’t enough resources. These stories live on in the archives of our imagination and only resurface when we are reminded of how ridiculous they are.
One such story from that era was about Nickelodeon’s Cry Baby Lane a movie made in the year 2000. It was a horror movie considered to be so terrifying that after its initial broadcast, Nickelodeon sealed it away, “banned” forever because it was too damn disturbing and possibly cursed.
Enter Reddit and its speculations and conspiracy theories as to why Cry Baby Lane was “lost.”
YouTube content creator Jordy McNeill recently delved into this movie’s mysterious past in a nice breakdown followed by a comical truncated watch-along.
In the movie two brothers “are told a ghost story about a farmer’s Siamese twins, but during a séance, they mistakenly awaken the evil twin and are forced to defend their community from being haunted.”
Interestingly, this is one of director Peter Lauer’s early works. He eventually went on to direct episodes of such classic TV comedies as Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development, and Awkward.
Thanks to the magic of YouTube, and a prognostic TV viewer, there is a VHS copy of Cry Baby Lane available to watch on the platform. Although the film doesn’t live up to its posthumous hype, there is some entertainment to be had here. Believe it or not, Cry Baby Lane might not be scary by today’s standards, back then I can see it terrifying kids who were too old for Blue’s Clues but old enough to understand The Wild Thornberrys.