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The Brood (1979)
Rate:
10
Viewed:
5/08, 7/15
5/08:
The Brood is one of the darkest and most intelligent horror films I've seen.
It's also terrifying, scary, and different. Once again, David Cronenberg shows why he's a better director than David Lynch
when it comes to working with radical concepts. Oliver Reed is superb as Dr. Raglan for setting the tone of the film.
Samantha Eggar helps him by taking it to another level in the last fifteen minutes.
The unsolved mystery with the children has me thinking of Nicolas Roeg's film Don't Look Now with Donald Sutherland
and Julie Christie. When the revelation comes, things start to click, thanks to David Cronenberg for sticking with the rules
of the game. Interestingly, to write the screenplay, David Cronenberg was inspired by his ex-wife while they were being
divorced.
All in all, The Brood is one of the best horror pictures made.
7/15:
Of David Cronenberg's oeuvre, I consider The Brood the best he has done.
What I hate about horror pictures is the idea of a masked killer with propensity for creative deaths who refuses to be
stopped until there are one or two survivors left before being easily dispatched. It's stupid, boring, and tripe.
Thankfully, The Brood is the opposite of it.
David Cronenberg delivers a story that's driven by two parallel threads: things that are happening to the little girl and the
role-play therapy sessions between her mother and the psychotherapist. What's not immediately clear from the outset is the
connection between these two. When the revelation is made in the last fifteen minutes, it clarifies what the mystery is all
about.
A fine actor in his time with piercing eyes, Oliver Reed gives the best performance of the film. He's adept in increasing
the intensity of horror as the mystery deepens. When it's finally figured out by the father, Reed has a terrific, suspenseful
scene in the shed at the end. I also love the title of the book The Shape of Rage which is a metaphor of what's to come.
Oliver Reed's seriousness also leads to the increased credibility of The Brood as a horror film. It's evidenced by the
handling of his patients during the therapy sessions which makes the nature of the subject darker than anticipated. Then, it's
Samantha Eggar who complements him and thereafter takes off on her own for a chilling, grotesque finale. I guess David
Cronenberg must have really hated his ex-wife.
I like to think of the film as an allegory of how the children are victims of broken marriages. The father is
emotionally distant and absorbed with his work while the mother is selfish and only cares about her needs. Stuck in the
middle is the girl who's traumatized by the changes in her life because she's not being cared for and is left to fend for
herself.
The selection of the word "brood" for the title is interesting because it takes on a double meaning. On one hand, it means
"children of a family." On the other hand, it means "to think a lot about something in an unhappy way." Both happen
simultaneously in the film as the artifically-made children become instruments of the mother's rage, hence the title of
the psychotherapist's book.
All in all, The Brood is an intelligently crafted horror picture at the hands of David Cronenberg with great
performances by Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar.