Redundant and unnecessary.

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

The subject matter of this movie is disturbing. Let's get that out of the way to start with. But nevertheless this is a well put together horror movie that keeps you on the edge of your seat right the way through. There are a couple of mis-fires in the plot and camera work (which are discussed elsewhere in these reviews so I wont rehash them) but for the most part this is very well done. The acting is superb. The kids are exceptionally good especially the oldest boy in a very demanding role - the film is carried by him as much as the mother character. The only real let down is the ending. Sorry, but it was completely stupid. That just wouldn't happen in real life and when you take such great pains to make a "realistic" movie you can't get away with such a ridiculous conclusion to it. The same is true of the major plot holes. I still recommend this movie - as long as you can handle the idea of children being killed which not everyone can do. BUT I would stop the movie a couple of minutes before the end. You'll know the spot. It was a perfect place to finish but then they jumped forward a few weeks or whatever and stuck in a ludicrous "surprise". The thing is, if you're going to tackle a subject as distressing and fraught as a mother murdering her children you absolutely cannot make it a silly, "fright night" shocker with gaping plot holes and tacked on stupid "twists" at the end. You can get away with doing that in most horror flicks - especially slashers - because people don't mind as much when it's totally exaggerated and not very likely stuff going on all through the movie. But this movie was handling something much more real and terribly possible involving children AND they were portraying it as a straight realistic story, not as something supernatural or bizarre. The makers of this flick needed to keep that in mind and show respect for the topic, but instead they went for the cheap and nasty option. I think this explains their low ratings.One of the better movies around in this genre right now - especially if you prefer realistic drama, nail-biting suspense & acting over simplistic "gore-fests". But it lost a lot of points for the ending & some ridiculous plot issues.

A young mother (an excellent and terrifying performance by Colleen Porch) suffering from post-partum depression goes dangerously crazy and turns on her own children. It's up to ten-year-old Jimmy (a sound and credible portrayal by Ridge Canipe) to protect both himself and his younger siblings from their mother's murderous wrath. Directors Amardeep Kaleka and Lars Jacobson (the latter also wrote the dark and uncompromising script) don't pull any punches in their telling of this genuinely scary and upsetting tale that was inspired by an actual incident; the extreme scenes of brutal violence against children (some of them are even killed!) are intensely painful, gut-wrenching, and hard to watch. Moreover, the meticulous and convincing evocation of pedestrian everyday reality adds an extra frightening plausibility to the already bleak and unnerving narrative. The best and most distressful horror films hit home (in this case literally) by showing how ordinary life can be ripped asunder by an equally mundane, yet deadly and unusual phenomenon. One becomes very afraid of what this unhinged and dangerous woman might do to both herself and her own children; her descent into psychotic insanity is the stuff of real nightmares. The film further benefits from sterling acting by an able no-name cast: Porch and Canipe are remarkable in the leads, with fine support from Joel Bryant as the trucker father, Kali Majors and Holden Thomas Maynard as Jimmy's younger siblings, and Gene Witham as amiable neighbor Lester. Matthew MacCarthy's cinematography gives the picture an appropriately rough and grainy look. Amardeep Kaleka's shuddery score also does the shivery trick. The conclusion is positively bone-chilling. Unpleasant for sure, but still quite powerful and effective just the same.

Spoilers contained below: Apparently there are several people on this board who get their thrills from watching young children murdered by their mother. This is not a horror movie. This is not a thriller. It is about a poor, sick woman who goes crazy after the birth of her last child and butchers her young children in front of her other children. Then at the end the woman is apparently going to be allowed to go home with her last surviving child and her husband is okay with all of this!! You have to be kidding me. As the mother of 3 children I could not watch this movie. It was completely disturbing and I am furious that it was billed as a thriller and so I was suckered into renting it. If I could have given it 0 stars or -100 stars then I would have.If you like watching young children murdered then this is definitely the movie for you. If you find that sort of thing sickening then stay away!

Lately, I have been disappointed by the overgenerous ratings on IMDb and so, it is with skepticism that I watched "Baby Blues". I must say I was pleasantly surprised by the experience despite some flaws in this modest production.I should also point out that I hate spoilers (and try to keep my reviews free of them) and try to avoid any blurbs before watching a movie. I expected a somewhat mild, made-for-TV drama/thriller and boy, was I wrong! Without spoiling anything, be aware that this movie can be deemed *extremely* disturbing to many viewers. The basic plot follows a modest rural family in the south, where young children have to cope with an absent father and an unstable mother being prone to some form of the "baby blues".The direction is quite raw but achieves the tension required to make it work. One must deplore the opening, which states the sensationalist "based on actual events" but is really just a cheap, marketing stunt. The film, is in fact, not based on actual events at all and there is even a disclaimer in the end titles clearing that up. However, the basic plot is more than enough to make a worthy thriller (and it bears to be repeated, some scenes are very disturbing and might qualify this as horror for many). The co-directors both developed the characters just enough for us to care, although it seems in the end, some of the actual development of the father figure played by Joel Bryant doesn't pay off.Without a doubt, I think the element of this production that will be most talked about (besides the disturbing events suffered by the children) will be the lead actress Colleen Porch, who plays the mother. I can't say I have ever noticed her (she did appear in a CSI episode I must have watched, but I have no memory of it whatsoever) but there is no way you can miss her interesting and very promising performance here. The directors must have realized this too, as it seems they highlight her performances at times. Porch's characterization as the mother is uneven and she does overact at times, yet more often than not, she pulls it off brilliantly. The result is at times very impressive and will remind some of Jack Nicholson's Torrance in "The Shining". Colleen's role requires nuances that she doesn't master yet but she definitely has screen presence and I would love to see her in other roles. Beautiful, intense eyes too! As for the kids, they do well. Ridge Canipe, the eldest, takes some time to get used to yet in the end, wins us over and as he grows comfortable in his role, so does the empathy we feel for his character.Is this a great movie? No. The direction is at times on the goofy side. Photography and lighting are on par with small productions. There are exceptions, like some great shots of the environment, or some solid angles during tensed scenes, only for the next one to be a head scratcher. Like the acting, it's very inconsistent, very hit-and-miss. But again, the talent is there and that makes it a good, solid entry.It's difficult to label the movie. There's enough genuine drama for this to be a drama. There are some thrills. And there are horrific scenes. The direction and script seems to borrow from several flicks, from classic to cult classic. There's definitely more style than substance, yet an honest attempt at substance is there.Somewhere between The Shining, High Tension, Single White Female and Jack Ketchum's The Girl Next Door, this movie is a mish-mash of genres and an independent production that shows its flaws, yet succeeds in engaging you and giving a decent thrill ride.And ironically enough, although the co-directors are nowhere near as accomplished or as ambitious as Michael Haneke, Baby Blues also achieves what "Funny Games" set out to do far more effectively, and without even trying. I give it a good 6 and hope to see more of Lars E. Jacobson, Amardeep Kaleka, Ridge Canipe, Joel Bryant and especially, the very intriguing Colleen Porch.