With his depraved concepts and visuals, David Cronenberg is one of the most inventive and original horror directors in film history. Cronenberg occasionally delivers mainstream movies, but is known for his journeys into the bizarre with movies like “Videodrome”, “Dead Ringers” and “Naked Lunch.” “The Brood” is one of his early pictures, and it plays with some horror convention, but - in the end - becomes utterly disturbing.
(For other scary movies featured this month, you can link to slideshows of the first seven films, films from eight to fourteen and “Suspiria” (1977))
“The Brood” (1979) 4 / 5 stars - “I’m in the middle of a strange adventure,” Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar) says.
That’s exactly how I felt while watching writer/director David Cronenberg’s twisted film, “The Brood.”
Cronenberg pulls out a sordid idea from his imagination and gives it life in the form of this film, and one scene in particular is so unforgettably revolting, it will probably never leave the back of my mind.
(Thanks a lot Mr. Cronenberg!)
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) does not have much to be thankful for these days.
His wife, Nola, is under psychiatric care in an unconventional hospital, and Frank finds bruises, scratches and bite marks on his daughter's back after a visit with her mom.
Horrified, and in order to protect his daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), Frank tells Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) she will no longer visit Nola.
Dr. Raglan objects because he claims Nola is working through a critical stage of her treatment, psychoplasmics.
We aren’t quite sure what psychoplasmics is exactly, but we know Dr. Raglan gives us the creeps, and one ex-patient claims that Dr. Raglan’s methods caused his body to revolt against itself in the form of an unseemly cancer.
While we hear about Dr. Raglan’s “treatment” for his 27 patients, three violent murders transpire.
Initially, the film only shows passing glimpses of who or what is finding such glee on their savage killing spree, but we discover these “things” are small and not the most attractive-looking creatures.
(Think Willy Wonka’s Oompa Loompas after bizarre a farming accident during a nuclear fallout.)
Cronenberg provides an unsettling atmosphere for the strange events to transpire, and Eggar delivers a wickedly distorted performance.
Nola is need of psychiatric care, and I certainly believed it.
With wild eyes and equally crazed anger and hurt, Nola won’t be ready for a local PTA meeting anytime soon.
Hindle is fine as the innocent husband/father trying to make sense of the madness around him, but the film feels mechanical and pedestrian at times.
The murders are brutal and violent, but not terribly shocking by horror film standards.
Instead, the movie's strength is the aforementioned atmosphere, and the shocks come in the form Cronenberg’s touches on the general premise.
Indeed, a strange adventure.
“The Brood” is available on DVD and rated R for adult language, adult content, graphic violence, and disturbing content.
