The Brood

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🎙️ EPISODE 362: 08.05.2021 🎙️ EPISODE 2: 04.01.2015 EDITOR'S NOTE: In 2021, I re-reviewed this movie as part of my series... Chronenburg (Episode 362). The written review here has been adapted from that critique / the videos below.. I was really looking forward to rewatching The Brood, which I actually reviewed all the way back on Episode 2 of the podcast. And I think for good reason. For a lot of folks, I feel like it represents the beginning of peak or classic Cronenberg. Did I like it? Yes. Did I like it as much as I thought I would? Well, not really. Whereas, in his earlier sci-fi horror explorations, (Shivers and Rabid), the flaws felt admirable in a sense, or had redeeming qualities, the flaws here... just felt like flaws.

The Brood begins with one of the strongest individual scenes that we've seen yet in the Cronenberg filmography. A quack doctor, played by the great Oliver Reed, grills a patient in an aggressive form of confrontational therapy that causes the patient to spontaneously experience physiological body changes by way of a kind of skin irritation, like boils, hives, and worse. This we find out is a technique called "psychoplasmics." (Not a real thing, obviously)

Basically the patients are releasing buried psychological trauma with a combination of role-play and some good ole fashion Cronenberg body horror. What makes this opening great is how it's framed. The audience is given no context for what's happening and as it turns out, this has been a sort of show, a demonstration for family members of this experimental clinic's patients. [ Which, side bar: Cronenberg certainly loves his places, doesn't he? There are some really nice concrete settings that provide the impetus for all the subsequent action. Shiver's idyllic condo apartments, Rabid's plastic surgery hospital, and The Brood's wacko disturbed person facility, aka the Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmics. It's a nice through-line that you can even connect back to his early early work; Cronenberg loves an institution, and all the inherent folly which often comes with the dissolution of their good intentions. ]

So, we're quickly introduced to one of the most dysfunctional families of all-time. We've got Mom, NOLA, played by Samantha Eggar, she's in the in-patient treatment program at Oliver Reed's looney bin. Then there's Dad, FRANK, played by Art Hindle, whose just yet another cardboard cut-out of a male protagonist in this thing. And, this being a David Cronenberg movie, we'd be foolish to think that there wouldn't be some weird and bad stuff happening to children. Enter Frank and Nola's daughter, who's drawn the short straw here.

Look, I get it. It's an easy mark. If your set up involves bad stuff happening to kids, you're sinking the claws in real deep. You're gonna get a response! But that's not to say it isn't cheap or easy, because it is. I suppose I'm just a little bit tired seeing as, oh I don't know like 75% of the films thus far have had this element in them *shrugs*

We're also introduced to Nola's parents, who are both shitty drunks, whom she wants to kill and, welp *SPOILER!* that's kind of the central conflict of the damn movie. It's not hard to figure out; it's not supposed to be. If bad stuff happens to kids, what happens when those kids become adults? This is a movie about little mutant freaks who kill people violently – and we will get to them! – but it's also about family and how you sometimes wanna kill your parents (metaphorically) for being fucked up, and fucking you up, and about how ultimately that's useless, wasted energy. Because they were once kids too. It's the famous "vicious cycle," to put it simply.

We waste no time getting to the first kill: Nola's mommy (Kill #1). And Cronenberg spaces these out quite nicely; there's only a small handful of them all together. In this regard, it's certainly a more polished film than the earlier work. He's really finding his footing when it comes to pacing here. And while that, as well as so many other aspects – like (most of) the acting, the first inclusion of a tremendous Howard Shore soundtrack, etc. – felt like such huge steps forward, there was one area, one pretty huge area that felt extremely lacking... I'm talking about the killer(s)! I mean, look at this little fucker...


Cronenberg has already shown us the goods when it comes to sick body horror shit and the main evil element in this is what? A little person in a snow suit with a Halloween Store mask on? And yes, he would certainly try to make up for this dearth of practical effects in the final act.

Thankfully, this feels like a rarity in the early Cronenberg works, where the concept went deeper than the execution on some level. But I am just not scared or impressed by these tiny murderers. I could simply kick them over at ease. I would have no problem taking out a dozen of these guys. Step to me, Brood. Step to me! I dare you.

Moving right along, we soon meet the best character in the movie...the guy with the fucked up neck who is a former patient of Oliver Reed's. He's dropping some science-based exposition in this scene, basically how psychoplasmics works essentially. And honestly, I don't get it; I'm not sure there's anything to get since it isn't real, but damn if this dude isn't low-key hilarious in doing so. Can't really put my finger on it. He's only in a couple scenes but he steals all of them. And the actor Robert A. Silverman would go onto to play in roles in several more Cronenberg movies.

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There's layers of pain and resentment which we don't necessarily get to beyond Nola's strange therapy sessions. But we see it in the characters' eyes.

The freak kills Nola's daddy (Kill #2) but also dies in the process. Its gets out that there is are killer mutant children on the loose, so the Bad Doctor Oliver Reed decides to get all of the patients who aren't named Nola out of the clinic, and Frank goes to check in with neck guy who introduces him to the patient from the demonstration in the opening scene, and we get some fairly big clues about what's going down. Then Frank goes to his daughter's school where he spots some... unusual looking children before being distracted very conveniently by a character named Wendy whom we haven't met yet and we won't be meeting again. Well, those kids weren't kids but – you guessed it – more mutant freak children, who would go onto viciously bludgeon the teacher to death with some toy wooden mallets? Sure. (Kill #3) Good job, Wendy!

Eventually, the disturbed man from the beginning shows up at Frank's house looking for food (?) and he brings the biggest clue thus far. Why is he there? How did he know where Frank lived? These are not questions you should be ask–

Probably the best, or at least my favorite major twist in this movie, is the doctor, Oliver Reed, becoming a quasi-good guy in the end. Yes, it happens abruptly and his hand is certainly forced, but it's a turn you likely won't see coming.

The final ten-fifteen minutes are predictably nutty and insane. All is revealed to Frank, the audience's surrogate. It's one of the more iconic sequences in Cronenberg's career, perhaps, and MAJOR kudos to Samantha Eggar for going ALL IN with it. Basically, the gist is: the dwarf children are the accidental product of Nola's psychoplasmic sessions; her rage about her abuse was so strong that she bore a "brood" of children who psychically respond and act on the targets of her rage, her mom, her dad, a woman who MIGHT be having an affair with her husband, with the catch being that Nola is completely unaware of their actions.

One interesting question which remains for me is: did the doctor know that this was happening and wanted to let it happen or is he just dealing with the unintended consequences of what his experiments, now past the point of no return, have led to? Oh well, the brood kills him (final Kill #4). We'll never know.

We end on the most ambiguous note that we've seen thus far in a Cronenberg flick. Essentially, the brood dies when Frank strangles Nola to death. He rescues his daughter and the movie ends with a zoom in on her arm as Frank drives her away from the hellish scene at the clinic and – wait – what are those? boils on her arm? Oh no, is she manifesting some early signs of this nonsense? Is it hereditary? Is the kid going to become the parent who has more kids who turn out like the parents who... and on and on and on.

LOOK. This is a clunky movie with some uneven performances across the board, and we don't get many cool practical FX stuff until that batshit climax, but – BUT – there is a good deal of interesting thematic stuff, even if it's a little too on the nose at times. In many respects, it is the most interesting movie that he's made yet. I just don't think it's the most entertaining. If this is your favorite Cronenberg movie, I'm sorry! Please don't send a gaggle of mutant dwarves to kill me. Thanks?

𝚃𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚒𝚜 𝚝𝚑𝚎 6th 𝚒𝚗𝚜𝚝𝚊𝚕𝚕𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝙲𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚋𝚞𝚛𝚐 – 𝚖𝚢 𝚌𝚑𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑/𝚛𝚎𝚠𝚊𝚝𝚌𝚑 𝚘𝚏 𝙳𝚊𝚟𝚒𝚍 𝙲𝚛𝚘𝚗𝚎𝚗𝚋𝚎𝚛𝚐'𝚜 𝚏𝚒𝚕𝚖𝚘𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚙𝚑𝚢. 𝙲𝚕𝚒𝚌𝚔 𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚏𝚞𝚕𝚕 𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚔𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊𝚗𝚍 𝚖𝚘𝚛𝚎...

CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 1 - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 3 ⫸

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ EPISODE 361B - (YOU ARE HERE) - EPISODE 363A ⫸

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