The Hand That Rocks the Cradle

Of course dr. mott has dr. mott has had a long history of doing this and his wife knows about it. however his dark secret is exposed by claire bartel (annabella sciorra) who while pregnant gets some unwanted sexually advances by the good old dr.

Bartel then is pointed as the first woman to come out as one of the dr. victim's and this causes a domino effect where other victims come of the closet to talk about the dr. the dr's games are over , however he can't deal with the fact that he has been exposed and going to prison, so he commits suicide (via a gunshot).

Peyton (mornay) loses their baby in the process and when she finds out miss bartel was the first victim to speak out she does what any typical psycho would do, she targets her for her revenge. the expression "hell on wheels" definitely applies here. Peyton's character is quite a sight for sore eyes, i haven't seen a psychotic character like this since glenn close's alex character in fatal attraction.

However, peyton doesn't launch an obvious assault on claire. no she's schemes to get into the family and then killing clare by posing as a nanny for hire in the family.

She then sets up the situation to get hired by making it look like the baby of the Bartel's is choking and thus saving her life. Pathetic. However the Bartels, Clare and Michael (Matt Mccoy) laughingly fall for the lies of Peyton despite the fact that she isn't whom she claims to be but then again the Bartel family is such a naive family that they are easily pluckings for Peyton's revenge.

For instance, Peyton is hired to be the "nanny" even though, she admits she wasn't sent by a nanny agency , she doesn't have clear cut references, and Marlena Craven (Clare's friend) doesn't like her one bit.

That about sums the movie itself in a way. It seems several characters are either too dumb or too naive to see what's going and this in turn leads to the disastrous things that happen at the hands of Peyton.

For example it seems that Clare has a sort of asthma problem and she must take her pills. Well one day, Michael (Matt Mccoy) must turn in an important proposal to his company. Clare volunteers to do it, but when her back is turned, Peyton hides the proposal thus ensuring some problems in the marriage of the Bartels. The stress caused on Clare causes her to have several asthma attacks yet she doesn't see that Peyton is responsible despite the warnings from Marlena or the obvious advances Peyton is making toward Michael. Yes that's right Peyton ever the home-wrecker tries to make sexual advances toward this gullible guy to break up the family.

Add further insult the other person who doesn't believe Peyton's nanny character is who she claims is Solomon (Ernie Hudson from Ghostbusters and Oz). Solomon is a black man who is mentally challenged, yet despite this Solomon has the intelligence to realize Peyton is a psycho. However, Peyton before Solomon has a chance to discuss his suspicions of her, gets rid of Solomon, thus leaving the Bartel family once again an easy target for her.

LOL I made it sound like a soap opera. But all kidding aside "The Hand That Rocks the Cradle" is a very intense psychological thriller. Probably the best that came after Fatal Attraction and was then followed by another thriller about a psycho woman in "Single White Female" with Bridget Fonda.